Why Australians need a food scare.

Apathy is rife in Australia.

The comfort of ignorance is our national pastime.

What we don’t know won’t hurt us.  Wrong.

So it is that consumers, food retailers and policy-makers alike have just been dealt a serious reality-check.

Everyone has leapt to their own vindication in a bemusing flurry of blame and finger-pointing.

“I didn’t understand” is not a defence.

Let’s be clear.  Product labelling is not a cause.  It is symptomatic of the fact that Australians will shove anything into their shopping trolley.

Exactly two years ago I published the following opinion piece.

This week is one of mixed emotions for me.

Horrified it came true; thrilled by the catalyst for change.

Australia needs a food-safety scare

Australian food consumers need a food-safety scare, so they wake-up to their dangerous indifference about how the food system has changed.  People are simply not asking enough questions about where their food comes from and how it was prepared.

A crazy proposition I know; but I have experimented with this topic in dozens of conversations.

Changing peoples’ attitudes is a significant challenge.  As the best marketers will tell you, it’s very, very difficult.  Indifference is possibly the toughest of them all.

Australia’s agricultural and food production industries have tried repeatedly to change the indifferent attitude of Australian consumers.  Campaigns have been aspirational at best and it isn’t working.

Australian’s have a strange habit of saying one thing and doing the complete opposite – despite what they tell us in numerous surveys about food.

  

It is not confined to buying groceries.  For example, Australians say they will donate their organs - but don’t.  Australians say they will give blood – but don’t.

This phenomenon is known as stated preferences versus revealed preferences.  Revealed preference is an academic way of saying that people are actually very lazy.

 

Understanding how Australian consumers behave highlights the need for better marketing strategy.

A key tactic for changing someone’s indifferent attitude is to find the associated pressure-point in their life - and press it.

So where is the pressure-point for Australian food consumers?  It’s inside their homes and in their fridge; in their pantry and on their dining table.  We need to get a message about food into peoples’ lounge rooms.

If people are nervous about what they are putting into their kids lunch boxes; what’s going into the fridge; what’s going onto the kitchen table at night – they will start to ask questions.

People talk when they are nervous and so the message is leveraged through the power of shared experience.  If something happens to make Australian consumers nervous about where their food comes from, it becomes a shared experience.  Picture this - it would be the number one topic at school drop-off points, in the school canteens, at family functions, at kids sport on Saturday mornings, Facebook and so on.

The power of questioning turns retailers into allies of our food industry.  A food-safety scare would cause consumers to start hammering food retailers with questions, questions and more questions about the food on their shelves.  Nothing makes a corporation change faster than when they are getting beaten around the head by angry communities who are banging their fists on the table demanding that ‘if you don’t answer our questions, we’ll shop somewhere else.’

Unfortunately, people are simply not asking questions about their food.

How do we scare people without making them sick?

Remember the Grim Reaper advertisements on TV that scared everyone into changing their social habits.

A legendary campaign, watched in peoples’ lounge rooms around Australia every night in 1987.  My idea is that we do a similar ‘grim reaper’ campaign about imported food, to show consumers what might happen if there is an accident regarding imported food from a country that has poor production safety standards.

If we had a grim reaper bowling an imported apple at a bunch of school kids, I think it would get peoples’ attention.  Watch the ad now and imagine it talking about imported food. Replace the words always use condoms with always read the label.

So, what I’ve been proposing all along is that we don’t have an actual food safety scare and people actually start getting sick – we create one, by putting the notion in peoples’ heads of what might happen if they don’t change their poor attitude.  That’s all the Aids campaign did – the people watching it did the rest e.g. remember all the talk about the ad?

How do we know this works?  Well, at the moment there are other countries in the process of restructuring their entire food chain, because there was a food safety scare and consumers have now demanded change.  But for them it was too late.  Think horse meat.  Think baby formula.  Think milk contamination.

Anyway, just a few thoughts to make a point and stir discussion - because I don’t think what we’ve been doing are very effective.

What do you think?  Should we use the Grim Reaper tactic?

New Year Offer: Boost your leadership team for less than $15 a day.

It's the festive season and we feel like giving away some of our time.

For the month of January, SOS Interim is offering regional small to medium agribusiness and food enterprises located ANYWHERE in Australia, the chance to improve the likelihood of success in 2015 for less than $15 a day using our Support Panel service.

A cost-effective and flexible way to get help, this is a complete package including 4 quarterly on-site visits and preparation, access to mentor and coach 24/7 x 365 and includes all travel expenses.

We'll come to wherever you are.

It's that simple to get help. It's that easy to get help.

Most suited for:

• Small and medium business
• Regional business
• New or young business
• Family business
• Agribusiness and food business

Offer limited to the first 5 businesses.

Sounds tempting but why should you seriously consider this offer?

Support Panels support you and your business.

It's a great way of providing a strategic boost to your leadership team.

Running a business is a lonely job.

In a country that is increasingly city-centric, owning and operating a regional business is even lonelier.

Regional business is tough business.

The unofficial source of much trusted advice in the regions is family, friends, accountants, lawyers and other industry peers.

This type of 'buddy' system has good intentions and is seen as a 'safe' environment for getting feedback about your business - but can be very ineffective.

It is often the case that people simply don't understand your business and what you're going through to make it all happen and hold it all together.

Forming your own ideas about the direction of your business then becomes difficult, if based on the opinions of others.

For many regional business owners "no one knows this game like I do" and are not seeking any help at all.

So what have other owners and operators been doing to get ahead of the game?

Some of the best product innovations, business models and new market initiatives to come out of regional Australia in recent times, are from organisations that have formed a Support Panel.

A Support Panel is a small group of independent mentors that use their complimentary skills and experience to provide advice on the strategic direction of your business.

These people do not have formal authority to make decisions on behalf of your business. The structure is flexible and informal.

Support Panels allow owners and operators to step away from day-to-day management issues and focus on the growth and development of their business, using a forum that challenges critical thinking.

Doing things right is always important. But true value for regional business is created when people have the opportunity to ask if in fact the business is doing the right things.

A Support Panel is functioning at it's best when:

• The business owners and operators are open to receiving input from others.
• Input from mentors is strategic, constructive and relevant to the current needs of the business.
• Everyone keeps an open mind and actively participates.
• Communication is open and honest.
• Everyone is being challenged with critical thinking.

Support Panels are a proven technique that serve as an informal guide to help your business learn, grow and perform better.

If this sounds like something that meets your needs in 2015, we would love for you to take up our offer.

Alternatively, please refer our offer to anyone you know could use a helping-hand.

In the meantime, we wish you all the very best in your endeavours for 2015 and beyond.

Cheers.

CONTACT:

Jeremy Lomman

0417 567 148 jeremy@sosinterim.com.au

Blockbuster 2015 ahead for SOS Interim. Here's a sneak-peek.

SOS Interim is looking at a blockbuster 2015 thanks to inspiring clients with amazing vision.

Sometimes owning and operating a business is like going down the Ulanga River on the African Queen.

But despite choppy economic waters and the feeling Australia is lost at sea without a rudder, we’ve plotted the charts for some awesome agribusiness and food projects in 2015.

It’s always a privilege to be welcomed into someone’s business and help navigate a brighter future.

The great thing about interim management is when a doer helps a doer, within a few weeks the business is already achieving outcomes.

Here’s snippet of what’s on the horizon in 2015 for SOS Interim:

• National expansion of fertiliser company
• Launch of food marketing and distribution company
• Food product development for export
• Export marketing program linking local producers with international processors
• Launch of new regional centre for business, trade and entrepreneurship
• A new business model for suppliers of inputs and services to industry

As usual my nose will remain buried in university textbooks to ensure people receive cutting-edge help.

Here’s to all the idea-makers and dream-weavers keeping it real.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Commodity Fetishism

I’d like to introduce you to a common type of fetish you may not have heard of, but regularly enjoy.

It’s called commodity fetishism and was first described by Karl Marx way back in 1867.

It’s having a significant impact on the profitability and sustainability of regional business.

How so?

There are two headlines that continue to dominate the media.

 

They are: households complaining about the cost of living and, businesses complaining about the cost of operating.

We have been groomed with new lifestyle expectations; totally convinced that everything must be had as an absolute necessity.

But as business owners we have also been groomed as consumers of inputs.

Our behaviour as business owners can also drive-up the cost of doing business.

Social researcher Mark McCrindle calls this expectation inflation.

Are we so convinced that as business owners we must have the latest, the biggest or the most of everything?

A tempting proposition.

However, overcapitalising our business beyond its reasonable productive capacity will derail it.

But why would any business owner in their right mind deliberately derail their own business?

A driving force behind commodity fetishism within a business is risk appetite.  Financial literacy is a key measure of risk appetite – normally.  But when commodity fetishism takes hold, we make purchasing decisions the implications of which we don’t understand.

Tammy May of My Budget fame has a simple yet thriving business helping those who have ‘overcapitalised’ the household budget.

Interestingly, the Regional Australia Institute identified that poor financial skills is potentially the single biggest factor negatively impacting the prosperity of regional business.

As we hang-up our stockings and think about spending, perhaps as business owners we should make 2015 a ‘socks-n-jocks’ year.

DIDO employees are shrinking regional economies.

I write a fortnightly column for a newspaper based in the Mid North of South Australia.

We tackle all things rural, regional, agribusiness and food.

Some pieces are light, topical and trending.  Some dig deeper, exploring life as a business based in the regions.

As with any of the articles or opinion pieces I’ve had published over years, there’s the anticipation of at which point you’ll touch a nerve.

A recent column that raised the issue of DIDOs in our region did just that – hit a nerve.

So I wanted to share it with my broader network and hear peoples’ feedback.

What are some examples of economic strategies to mitigate the impact of DIDOs?

With the magic of hindsight, it’s easy to see that our region was totally exposed to the creeping phenomenon of the DIDO worker.

Millions of dollars generated / provided by the region is extracted (paid) and spent elsewhere.

That money is no longer circulating in our local economy and the result is stark.

What happened in your region?  How did you mitigate the impact of DIDOs?

If you are a DIDO, what would it take for you to live where you work?

What’s worse – a FIFO or a DIDO?

Is it just me or are things pretty stagnant at the moment?  I can’t help but feel we still struggle to hold our towns together, under the weight of so many pressures that ultimately fall onto the shoulders of a shrinking pool of individuals – as is the case in rural and regional communities.

The tension is mounting.  Do you get a sense that we are the poor buggers that have been left to carry it all on?  People are getting tired, worn out and penniless.

I have a theory.  It’s about micro economics and its importance in bolstering regional communities.  You could call it grass-roots economics.

Economically we’ve lost our mojo.  Let me explain.

Everyone has heard of the FIFO – fly in fly out workers.

I’ve invented a new one.  The DIDO – drive in drive out workers.

DIDO’s draw vast amounts of money out of regional communities; money that leaves the region to be spent elsewhere.

Arguably, there is several million dollars that no longer circulates in our community.

The slow creeping effect of money leaving our communities with DIDOs has been devastating.

It’s easy to see how this region was uniquely positioned to be directly influenced by the inevitable DIDO phenomenon.

We needed an economic strategy to mitigate the impact.
 

But what if those leading the economic strategy for a region are DIDOs themselves?  Will they see what hurts those left behind in small communities?

Not an easy subject to tackle; but I think it’s important we all understand the dynamics influencing our region, as it has a direct bearing on how well we plan our economic future.

A challenge for the new councillors and one they should be allowed to sink their teeth into.

BTW - Please do not go out and round-up all the DIDOs into the triangle with burning torches.  We are all guilty of by-passing local business now and then.

Business failure is not evidence of market failure.

I recently joined the Global Food Studies program at the University of Adelaide.

We have only scratched the surface on the mountain of economic data and reports to be analysed about the global agribusiness and food industry.

One thing that is already glaringly obvious is the increasing challenge of managing the relationship between the agribusiness and food industry and Government.

The economic rationale for Government intervention in the agribusiness and food industry is very complex, especially now that food trade is almost completely liberalised, globalised and monopolised.

Long story short, most often the best financial outcome for all participants in the food chain is for Governments to simply get out of the way.

Competitive markets will create the most efficient food system. For this to happen markets need to be imperfect, because no one makes any money in markets that are perfectly competitive.

Imperfection means that some businesses will always fail or be absorbed. The fact that businesses fail is not evidence of market failure, requiring Government intervention.

There is a tendency for the agribusiness and food industry to ask for Government intervention to address the symptoms of imperfection.

Should this be the Government’s role? Will it improve the situation?

Leverage is a pre-condition for improving food systems, because it recognises the interrelationships that exist along the food chain.

A leveraged industry is well-capitalised. A well-capitalised industry is capable, productive and profitable.

This shifts the Government’s role to pulling the right economic levers locally, that improve the overall ‘investment setting’ of the agribusiness and food industry.

In today’s world of global business, it is important that individual participants of the agribusiness and food industry work towards improving their position, by understanding the global economic forces now impacting their business.

This is a key area of economic development for regional business in Australia. We need to know what to ask Governments to do. And to be clear on what we don’t want them to do.

Better understanding will help reset some old paradigms about the conversation we need to have with Government, in turn helping Government improve the application of its role.

We can turn our attention to effective policy, rather than the symptoms of being in business.

For what it’s worth, the entire world is currently grappling with this issue.

That just means more reading for me.

Farmers, consumers and the illusion of choice. (GM grain Part 2)

I’ll preface this post as per Part 1.

I’m not pro-GM.  I’m not anti-GM.

I’m pro unique food systems.  There aren’t many left.

Preserving uniqueness means challenges, compromises and consequences.

South Australia is already unique.  We are the driest State on the driest continent in the world.

 

Producing food under those conditions is unique.  So I’m also into preserving markets.

Against that backdrop, is preserving our uniqueness worth considering?  Is it the correct decision?

That is THE question all participants and stakeholders in South Australia’s local food system need to answer.

It is therefore appropriate for the Government to intervene while we remove disadvantages from the decision making process.

Should we allow grower choice at the expense of consumer choice?

It’s interesting that the current debate to approve GM grain production in South Australia is focused on the science of safety.

In Australia we have generally kept consumers in the dark about GM.  Consequently, the average shopper in the supermarket on a Saturday morning is not making buying decisions based on science.  Their decisions are influenced by other norms.

Nor are they intimidated by the power of science.  They now it achieves great things such as curing their family and friends from disease.

At the point-of-purchase, whether or not GM is safe scores quite low because people are actually indifferent on the topic.

Who let the activists in?

Ignorance creates indifference.  Indifference creates a vacuum.  This vacuum is the breeding ground for activists that purport to be the voice of consumers.  Activists can only operate where there are vacuums.  Activists don’t benefit consumers.  They only confuse, frustrate and misrepresent them.

It’s up to the food industry to fill the information void and remove indifference.

Are Australian consumers genuinely interested to hear from us?

 

Of course - they want to know the value of eating GM foods and the value of GM production systems.  It’s never been explained to them.

Be clear - tell consumers precisely what the value of eating GM is and what the value in growing GM is.

There needs to be increased effort in this area.

Consumers will benefit from greater awareness of the important trends occurring in food production.

But with more transparency comes more scrutiny.  If eating GM foods is not experientially sound and the production system is not ecologically sound, consumers will not approve.  

They simply see no value in changing our food system, which is a vote to preserve uniqueness.

So what do consumers value these days?  What will they choose?

Consumers have stated preferences and revealed preferences.  At the point-of-purchase consumers look for salient messages about origin, quality and authenticity.  

Is this healthy or unhealthy?  Is this natural or artificial?  What’s the price?  Done.

The food industry is told to give messages about provenance, sustainability, organic, fresh, ethically produced, ecologically sound and so and so on.

It’s really about allowing consumers to make guilt-free choices with very little thinking.

In the new era of guilt-free food, is there a value proposition for GM grain?

Is GM grain more nutritious?  Is GM grain a more natural production system meaning fewer chemicals?

If GM grain production can’t score highly in the area of guilt-free, then preserving uniqueness may be the correct decision.

The current moratorium on GM grain production in South Australia should not be about safety.

It’s about deliberately targeting and scoring highly on points-of-value with global consumers.

It may not achieve a premium.  But it may just preserve our markets.

Remember:  we are a remote outpost of the globalised food system.  We are the driest State on the driest continent located at the bottom of the planet.  Why would anyone want to rely on us to feed them?

If South Australia wants to grow GM grain, then we need to become THE WORLD’S BEST at convincing people the value in growing and eating them.

Otherwise we teach them to rely on us because of our uniqueness.

That’s a guilt-free story the world will buy.

Why GM grain production won't fly in South Australia. (Part 1)

I’m not pro-GM.  I’m not anti-GM.

I’m pro South Australia’s food industry.

This means finding a business model that allows our food system to access markets profitably.

To achieve that outcome there will be compromises.  There always is when achieving a consensus on strategy.  The alternative strategy is we do nothing.

I think we all agree, we don’t want the compromise of that.

The current discussion about growing GM grain in South Australia is far from centred.

People are debating issues that have little relevance to the actual outcome they seek.

Alarmist headlines are not helping.

Let’s be clear.  There is currently a moratorium in GM grain.  Not a ban.

My observation is that advocates have failed in their bid to halt a suspension on the introduction of GM grain production in South Australia, not because of what they have said, but because of what they haven’t said.  Or rather, the key question they haven’t answered.

That is, how will the introduction of GM grain into South Australia’s highly differentiated food system, add value to processors and consumers here and abroad?

The South Australian Government has adopted an integrated perspective of South Australia’s food industry.  For example, understanding the relationship between food and tourism is why an integrated approach is important for South Australia.

Hence we have Tourism Ministers making announcements about our food system – a smart marketing move.

Individual debates such as those concerning GM grain will always circulate.  But the ground-swell of opinion across South Australia’s broader food industry is that we need to dare-to-be-different and use this to build an individual sense-of-place about South Australian food that can be marketed to the rest of the world.

The South Australian food industry has adopted the mantra to provide premium food produced to the highest standards and to give processors and consumers of our food system an authentic food experience.

Consequently, the South Australian Government has developed, prioritised and committed itself to a range of programs and market-centric strategies propelling South Australia’s food industry and its participants around the globe, capturing a niche in consumer sentiment.

This is achieved because contrary to popular opinion, whether or not GM grain is safe is not the issue.  It is the current view of processors and consumers that GM grain is not premium quality or an authentic food experience – safe or otherwise.

For the moment it means some individual farm-gate requests have not been met in order to achieve the greater-good for South Australia’s food industry.

Over the next 5 years, it is vital the local grain production community soundly demonstrates how their wishes to grow GM grain can be integrated into the greater vision for South Australia’s food industry already underway.

The moratorium is an important period allowing grain producers to now view themselves as part of the broader food value chain community in South Australia or risk being isolated from future decisions.

Part 2 asks if the introduction of GM grain into South Australia’s highly differentiated food system will add value to processors and consumers here and abroad; and why the discussion should not be centred on the issue of safety.

What is the value in eating GM grains?  This is a key issue.

Unless the question of value can be answered for food consumers the proposition we will grow GM grain in South Australia is unlikely from a food marketing perspective.

Dear Potential Client. I've been here. Waiting for you. For so long. On social media. But you never turned up. Where are you?

This is the short story of an independent professional who was told everyone is online.

Thousands of hours later he realised they aren’t.

I get social media. Or as I like to call it: social business. I get the model.

It’s totally collapsed the old cost of starting or running a business.

This was music to my ears when I launched my independence.

Three years on and after thousands of hours dedicated to my digital strategy, here’s what I’ve learnt.

These observations have not brought about the end of my digital strategy. Three years is nothing in the life of a business, digital presence or otherwise.

But like any good strategy it’s important to review the landscape and know what you’re dealing with.

For that is what makes your strategy even better.

So here’s what I know to be true about the business of social business:

• People are not online as much as we are led to believe.
• The term ‘social media’ killed its adoption by businesses.
• Businesses do not consider social business as real work.
• The true value of social business is reduced operating costs.
• Social business upgrades the disciplines that should already exist in businesses but don’t and so is poorly understood.
• Social business and old habits don’t mix.
• Social business does not mean out with the old and in with the new.
• Light entertainment is not social business.
• Someone’s social business strategy just poached 5 of your key customers while you were reading this.
• Someone’s social business strategy just poached 5 of your key employees while you were reading this.
• Social business has become the excuse of choice rather than the opportunity of choice.
• People are still not convinced about blogs.
• Most businesses have forgotten they have a web site.
• People think LinkedIn is Facebook.

I’ll keep waiting for the others to arrive.

Sick of waiting?  Tell us about your experiences with social business by clicking in the work comment below.

We look forward to hearing peoples' thoughts.

The murky waters of uncontrolled enthusiasm.

I am helping a client re-build his fertiliser business.

It has a bright future.

It’s been a bumpy ride.

I am astonished at what he has achieved.

It is a credit to his bold vision and sheer guts and determination in what is a very congested industry.

This is a familiar story for so many of our amazing small enterprises.

It’s also the same that during the initial journey these businesses will have the first sense they are starting to lose traction. Things are just starting to get out of control.

A few people are nodding their head right now.

This is a legacy of what I like to call uncontrolled enthusiasm.

I love uncontrolled enthusiasm.

But it needs to be kept on a leash and reigned-in when it’s time.

The challenge with uncontrolled enthusiasm is that on the surface everything about the business looks great. There’s a great vibe. Things are happening.

But it can mask the fact that strategic decisions are not being made. The business is heading into murky waters.

Beneath the surface ugly monsters are starting to grow out of the business and will tear it down. These monsters need to be tackled.

A great tool for reorganising control of the business and implementing strategic management is the Balanced Scorecard; or scorecarding.

Scorecarding delegates and keeps track of the progress of specific strategic activities and constantly measures what outcomes they are producing and how this is performing against key measurements.

So that’s what I’ve been doing: tackling monsters.

But that’s the life of an interim manager. We love jumping in with our clients and getting dirty on the job.

If people need help they get more bang-for-their-buck that way.

The folly of Magical Thinking.

In 2012 I caused a stir by claiming the Year of the Farmer was the right message at the wrong time.

In just one year millions of dollars were spent on a self-indulgent pat-on-the-back aimed at encouraging people to appreciate food producers.

Since then there has been a mountain of stuff written and numerous initiatives launched hoping to bridge a perceived gap between food and consumers.

Markets are harder to engage and people are spoilt for choice.  It’s true that constant pressure to do better and the unrelenting competition of globalisation can cause an industry to suffer somewhat of an identity crisis.

In reaction to this we are now living in an era of wanting to be liked.  That is, if only people understood us and appreciated us more, they would buy our products and pay more for them.

Despite popular opinion and the purveyance of social media, being liked is not a business strategy.

The agribusiness and food industry has been suffering a bad case of magical thinking.

Magical thinking is a concept developed by famous neurologist and founder of modern psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud.

It leads people to believe their thoughts about themselves can change how others act towards them.

For businesses seeking to grow within agribusiness and food industry, the folly of magical thinking is a lesson in how not to be self-centric about what you provide.

Magical thinking should never be used as an excuse to not develop the skills your business needs to think differently and to increase the innovative capability your people.

So if you want to be noticed, put amazingly creative products or services in front of people, loaded with user experience and convenience.