Global trade can be challenging, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises. Luckily, the Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade) is here to help. In the latest episode of the Global Trade Made Easy Podcast, host Tejas Oza sits down with David Lawson, the Assistant General Manager of Export Supply Chain Services at Austrade, to explore how Austrade assists Australian exporters and foreign investors in navigating the complex global trade landscape.

During the podcast, Tejas and David discuss Austrade’s offshore network and how the commission assists Australian exporters in penetrating foreign markets. Some key highlights from the episode include:

• How Austrade provides a comprehensive range of support to Australian exporters, including assistance with financial resources, travel and meetings with customers, production needs, marketing pushes, and export contacts.
• How Austrade helps remove impediments to trade flow and clears samples from airports.
• During the COVID-19 pandemic, how Austrade assisted multiple manufacturers to get their product into the US by working with teams in Washington and Chicago to understand specifications.
• The year 2020 was challenging for Australian exporters due to disruptions caused by bushfires, the pandemic, and geopolitical tensions, leading to a decrease in exports from 475 billion to 250 billion. Despite these challenges, Australian exporters have remained resilient and are on track to set another record by the end of this financial year.
• How Austrade works closely with industry associations to promote Australian exports and investment throughout the world, resulting in successful export categories such as fuel, minerals, meat, dairy, horticulture, grains, seafood, wine, nuts, wool, and cotton.
• The ways Austrade provides support to Australian companies through locally engaged staff and trade commissioners in their key markets.

David Lawson leads a team of experts at Austrade to provide support and assistance to exporters in diversifying international markets, prepositioning inventory, and maximising benefits of trade agreements like USFDA, EUFDA, and Hector (India-Australia). Exporters can receive assistance by calling Austrade’s hotline at 132 878 or visiting austrade.gov.au for sector/country-specific information.

Don’t miss out on this insightful podcast episode! Tune in now to discover how Austrade helps Australian exporters overcome the tyranny of distance and expand their reach in the global market.

Episode 3: Austrade 1

Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Hello and welcome to the Global Trade Made Easy Podcast. In this podcast, we speak to the global trade leaders, innovators, and influencers from around the world. In Australia, we talk about ideas that can disrupt your organisation, industry, or even careers. So let’s dig in.

Hello everybody. Today we have David Lawson, Assistant General Manager, Export Supply Chain Services from Austrade. David, welcome to the show.

David Lawson, Austrade: Hey, thanks very much, Tejas. It’s great to be here. Looking forward to having a good chat about such an interesting topic.

Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Absolutely. Looking forward to it. So David if you don’t mind for our viewers and listeners would you mind telling us what’s your role with Austrade and also what Austrade does?

David Lawson, Austrade: Yeah, that’s great. Let me start by explaining, and I say hello to all the. Listeners who are not in Australia as well. So, our full formal name is in fact the Australian Trade and Investment Commission. It’s a government, it’s an Australian government authority.

So we report to the Minister for Trade Don Farrell. And it’s, it’s actually, it’s genesis as an organization goes right back to 1933 and the concept behind. The birth of the Australian Trade and Investment Commission. And the reason why Australian taxpayer money goes to supporting it now is because our job has always been to, you know, to overcome the tyranny of distance.

So, you know, Australia is an island at the bottom of the bottom of the. And in, in many ways we’re a long way away from our markets. So the Australian Trade Commission was set up to help, you know, overcome the tyranny of distance and help Australian exporters get into markets and also to help foreign investors as they look to get into Australia.

So within the Australian Trade and Investment Commission there. One of the divisions is solely dedicated to helping Australian exporters export, and it’s called the Trade Division. So I’m, I’m the assistant, one of the assistant general managers of the trade division. And my role is actually to look after agriculture, food, consumer exporters.

And I also look after some work that we do to. Australian exporters understand some of the trials and tribulations for supply chains. So we’ll probably get into the conversation a little later. But, you know, one of the biggest impacts to Australian exporters lately has been the breakdown of supply chains.

So a leader team of global engagement managers. We’ve got. Through our extended network, including the trade start service, which Australia runs in partnership with Australian state governments. We’ve got about 70 people all around Australia who are dedicated to working with Australian exporters to help them get into foreign markets.

It’s great to be, it’s great to be leading a really exciting team.

Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Thanks David. That is very interesting. The conversation will really suit to our viewers because most of the viewers are interested in exports, Australia . And so there are quite a few listeners from overseas countries who wants to come into Australia and invest it.

So I think the perfect match. Our focus will be on the exports from Australia today.

David Lawson, Austrade: Yep. Terrific. Yeah, so our offshore network, you know, we we’re in around 70 countries around the world. Some very big operations in, based in our embassies and in our high commissions and consulates general, all, all around the world.

And so if there are any of the audience today who are interested in buying from Australia, that’s the other side of our business, so they can make contact with Austrade. The, you know, the shorthand for the Australian Trade Commission, they can make contacts through our embassies overseas, and our business development managers can help you know, foreign buyers get in contact with suppliers from Australia. So, you know, there’s many ways I hope we’d be able to help with the conversation today.

Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: David excellent. Thank you for that. I understand that you have had a long involvement yourself personally. Trade and exports. Would you mind telling us how did you, how did you get involved in trade and exports?

David Lawson, Austrade: Thanks, Tejas actually, so I was really lucky. I was an exchange student under the Rotary program to Japan when I was 17. So I finished high school in Australia and went off to Japan, and I was hosted by you know, a series of businessmen in their families. And so I, you know, got to live in, in, in families who are doing business and, you know, just really excited my appetite to learn more about trade and business in Japan more specifically. And, you know, I came back to Australia and did my undergraduate degree and worked all the way through university. I was actually working with, you know, Japanese industry.

Learning, you know, learning sophisticated Japanese so that I could, you know, negotiate with Japanese. And I just always had this desire to be part of, you know, whether I was working for a big company or a small company that I might be able to help Australians export to Japan. So that was my original motivation and, and I started a business, I had a business idea that I would help Australian exporters get into Japan.

Now I started it when I was pretty young and, and I was pretty naive. So I was learning on the job. It was the University of hard knocks in many ways, coz I learned a. , I decided that if I focus on things the Japanese will always want to buy. There’ll always be a market. And what do people always need to buy?

We’ll, just keep it simple. You need to, you need food, you need clothing, and you need shelter, housing. And actually where I really got the most success was in. Exporting houses from Australia to Japan. So I was based in Japan and I, I found a Japanese architect who wanted to try to build a brick house.

So I guess as an importer into Japan, I found a supplier from Australia who could pull together a kit house. And then we built a model house in Japan, and we actually used Australian bricks and all the timber and all the things we had to make sure that it met Japanese earthquake requirements so it would be safe and then, Once we kind of figured out how to, I guess, crack the code and try and, you know, make money from this we, we started to expand the business now as an Australian exporter.

This is when I really understood the power of the Australian Trade Commission of Australia. So I became a client of Austrade. And all of the trade commissioners in regional Japan were finding customers for me, so Japanese architects and builders who wanted to import this kind of new concept of an Australian house.

And in the end, I built about 50 houses around Japan and, and the, the exporter from Australia. So I was kind of acting as the middle man and the export. Who was bundling all of these kit houses together for me actually won an Exporter of the Year award. So, it was a, it was, we learned a lot.

I didn’t make a lot of money. I didn’t lose money, but I learned a heck of a lot. And when I was looking to transition the business and, and grow I, I decided to try my hand at being one of these Austrade trade commissioners. And I applied and got a job with, with Austrade. So, it was 25 years ago now actually, but I joined Austrade, I was the trade commissioner in in Sendai in the northern part of Japan.

And then since then a. Has given me the opportunity to spend time in Australia. I’ve also been a trade commissioner and a cons general in San Francisco, in Mongolia, and I’ve had a number of other jobs with Australia in Tokyo, in Sub and in Osaka. So it’s been it’s been a great opportunity to apply the things that I learned as an exporter to.

Help companies in all sectors export around the world and not just to, to Japan. So, it’s been an exciting career. Very different from what I thought it was going to be, but it’s been great.

Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: That is a fascinating story, David. That’s a fascinating story. How does that, how does the progress work, right?

So you become a client of Austrade, and then you become part of Austrade. Yeah. Excellent. That’s very interesting. Yeah. Right. So, so what I, what I’m hearing from you is that Austrade also helps find customers. It happened in your story. Is it, does it still happen?

David Lawson, Austrade: Exactly. That’s the key thing that we do.

The real value add. So what we, the typical path that a, that an Australian exporter, we call ’em clients. A typical path might be that they approach Austrade and, and You know, they have an idea, I need to get into exports, or I’m exporting to one market, but I need help in getting to this other market.

So our, my team and, and, and in other sectors, the, our global engagement managers and our advisors meet with the exporter, understand their business, and we, I guess we, we coach them on the basics of getting into business. Do you have the right, do you. Do you have the financial resources to be able to sustain a marketing push into a foreign market?

You know, can you afford to travel and go and meet your customers? Do you have the people in the team to be able to produce the products? If you get a massive order, can you actually sustain? Can you fulfill that? Do you have the finances to be able to you know, to gear up, to be able to meet the demand once we make the export contact.

So then you know, we determine, okay, Malaysia might be a really good pro market for, for your particular product. And then what we do is we contact our team, Malaysia and we brief them on, on, on who the exporter is and what their product is, and our team offshore then. and, you know, finds potential customers and we introduce the product and you know, I guess we’re the bridge builder to facilitate the conversation and then, you know, we get outta the road and let people actually negotiate commercial deals.

You know, there’s other things that we do along the way. People You know, market their product, their samples might get stuck at the airport, need to get cleared by customs. So we, you know, we contact our team offshore, we’ll contact the brokers, the freight forwarders in, in market and help, you know, remove the log jam and re remove impediments to help the trade flow smoothly.

So, you know, we, that’s the typical pattern. The reverse is also true because our business development managers are talking every day to major supermarkets, for example, or, or big industrial manufacturers who suddenly need something that they figure they can get from Australia and we get these leads.

You know, it might be for butter. Actually a really good example was in the United States when. With infant nutrition. So infant formula, the main manufacturer was not able to produce anymore. So the, it became a national emergency and in fact, president Biden got involved. It was called Operation of Life on one and they were trying to find infant formula all around the world.

So we took the details, our team in Washington and Chicago. Worked to understand the specifications. We communicated that to all of the manufacturers in Australia, and we helped the number of those crack the code and get their product into the United States. So, you know, this is what we do day in, day out to help Australian export.

Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Nice. This is really helpful for our audience. Now you talked about some of the ways Austrade is helping exporters in, even in the current environment. So, post I, I guess, at the moment we are coming out of COVID in the current environment. How do you see Austrade and exporters are doing, they, how are they faring currently?

David Lawson, Austrade: Yeah, great question Tejas. And you know, trade is so important for Austrade where, like I said before, we’re an islands nation. we have to trade. And you know, it is just been so difficult, you know, in all the years that I’ve been involved and, you know, and you know, people are older and wiser and if we look at the histories, it’s never been more Strange as it has during the pandemic.

I mean, this really started in, in 2019 when, you know, some of our supply chains were disrupted by the book Bushfires. Then we had COVID on the top of that. You know, we had geopolitical pressures from, you know, from China blocking imports from Australia for a lot of our agricultural products. Then the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

I mean, it’s just never been stranger. and you know, if you look at the statistics in 20 19, 20 20 financial year, so we were exporting about 475 billion. You know, that was the value of our exports. And that was a record high. Then the plane stopped because of. and ships were completely disrupted and our exports fell in, you know, the debts of 2020 and 2021.

Our exports were down to 250 billion. But, you know, this is how resilient Australian exporters are. You know, and it’s real testament to the way that Australian exporters have had to deal with and modify what they do. You know, at the moment we’ve we’re up to 421. So, you know, by the end of this financial year, I we’re probably gonna send another record, set another record.

a lot of that has been on the back of, you know, the tensions with Ukraine and you know, if we could produce twice as much wheat we’d, it’d still be a world market for Australian wheat. So, you know, it’s been. from a global perspective, from, you know, if you look at all of Australian exports, it, it there are winners, but there have also been significant losers.

And our job is really to help especially those companies that are really struggling and ag and food in particular have been, you know, so, so hard here. So, yeah. So that’s what we’ve been focusing on, especially in. Branch working with those ag and food consumers to help them diversify internet markets.

Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Right. Yeah. I mean, because of my role, I also worked with a lot of exporters and you’re absolutely right. COVID post COVID challenges did disrupt a lot of exports, and I can see a lot of them are picking up in, in a, in a fantastic way. Yeah. So, what did you find, I mean, we talked about some of the challenges of exporters, post COVID.

What are the other things you notice in terms of challenges which the exporters are dealing with currently?

David Lawson, Austrade: So, just as a little bit of a snapshot, you know, with supply chains, we’ve been monitoring. You know, flights and shipping and with the, with the you know, the kind of the back to normal.

We, COVID is still here, but we’re operating as if it weren’t in many ways. People are traveling again and we’ve been monitoring and flights from Australia are now up back around about 75% of where they were prior to COVID. The, the difficulty is that there is not as many freighters number of reasons for that.

Pilots lost their qualifications during COVID because they weren’t flying the hours. So we don’t have as many pilots, we don’t have as many crews for you know, because of environmental reasons. Some of those. As it were, gas guzzling aircraft you know, they’re just too costly to fly.

So, the airlines you know, they’re, they really work it hard, you know, Qantas alone lost billions of dollars as to, you know, most airlines and so they’re putting their most efficient planes and they’re maximizing the number of people that have. Now that’s great for people wanting to travel.

It’s still expensive, but because they’re on smaller aircraft wide you know, narrow body aircraft, once you put the passenger and the passenger’s bags and then the airline, they’re obliged to carry mail and they’re obliged to carry spare parts for, you know, for their own airline, means there’s not a lot of space left for air.

So that that’s a continued difficulty. And we’re also, you know, we got out of sequence with the spread around the world of pallets. So we’ve got a shortage of pallets and a shortage, especially of food grade 20 foot containers. So both on sea freight and air freight. You know, there are still pressures there and, you know, the, it’s quite costly.

The ramifications for that for companies is that, you know, you can’t just get an order, ring your freight forward, you know, get a container delivered packet and send it when you want. you need to be planning, you need to be working really closely with your importer. You know, some companies are actually pre-positioning more of their inventory off.

You know, when they can to make sure that in anticipation for Chinese New Year, for example, or, know, some of the big events, you know, Thanksgiving for example, in the US is a big, the, you know, black Monday and what is it? Black Friday and just all those big sales cycles, especially in the Northern Hemisphere.

Exporters need to preposition, they need to think differently about how they handle their inventory and how they handle their supply. That has costs, you know, holding inventory longer has costs. So there’s all kinds of impacts to, you know, to exports. Yeah.

Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Yeah. I understand. Yeah. Quite a of challenges and, but I also see that, that the freight is getting a little bit easier.

Our client, we deal with clients and they, we hear that things are getting more, a lot more normalized. Freight forwarders are now starting to operate and they didn’t get the vessel booking earlier that easily. Now they have started. You know, they’re starting to normalize again.

Yeah. So David, how do you see the next 24 months and what’s next from as you see it?

David Lawson, Austrade: Yeah, that’s a big question. So, on one hand, you know, you’ve got the big macroeconomic pictures of interest rates and global interest rates. And, you know, is the northern hemisphere slowing down?

You know, is the US going to go into recession? There are big questions like with the opening up of China. You know, what, if there’s a big outbreak of COVID now What’s going to happen with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and just, you know, how unsettled all of that is. So on one hand there’s big things that we need to be mindful of, but you know, at the end of the day, we need to keep exporting.

And at, on the plus side, there’s some really great opportunities that, are especially opening up for Australian exporters. So over, you know, a series of, you know, many years Australia has really been championing. The importance of free trade. And, you know, we’ve won some fantastic free trade agreements over the years, you know, going right back to the US F D a, the free, the, the economic partnership agreement that we established with Japan, which was one of the, one of the most profoundly beneficial pre-trade agreements.

That Australia won in consultation negotiations with the Japanese have opened up in Korea, China, you know, Malaysia and Asan. But you know, we’re right on the cusp of the finalization of the UK F D A all going well by the end of this month that’ll be ratified in the UK and that’s gonna open up enormous opportunities for Australia in the UK.

We’re very excited about that. People will be mindful of. Of the fact that, know, the UK the Brexit allowed us to open up the negotiations with the UK directly, but also we’re really doing well and we hold high hopes for a conclusion of the EU F D A. Which, which just opens up enormous opportunities for us all across Europe.

And the other one that’s just coming to force as well, of course, is the India, Australia economic corporation agreement. So Hector, we call it which has just opened up enormous opportunities for us with India. Again, this is another profound free trade agreement that’s been negotiated.

You know, there’s. just all kinds of markets there and from my sector looking after ag and food, you know, the enormity of the Indian market just for wine. Now this is gonna be a very long, slow story because, you know, Indians tend to drink. Men drink spirits and women drink the spirits and beer and women drink wine.

So, you know, this will be a long process, but we have really high hopes for you know, for wine in particular, but across the whole spectrum of ag and food, there’s great prospects for India. We’re really gearing up and really looking forward to taking advantage of that. So, you know, In any, in any form of business, you know, there’s risks, but there’s rewards and it’s great to be a part of really helping Australia take advantage of these great new opportunities that we are getting.

Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Yeah, so I, I was gonna ask you about that. So, when you talk, when you are talking about getting and taking advantage of all the opportunities, so what Austrade has in terms of tools and strategies that you help with to the Australian exporters grow in other markets?

David Lawson, Austrade: Sure. Well, I guess I’ve already outlined the mechanics of how we you know, how we do things.

So if any exporters are out there and they need advice on markets, on, on new markets, contact us. We’ve got a hotline as well, 132 878. So we’ve got people that you know, if you just want general information, statistics, call that number first. But you know, there’s other ways that you can reach out to Australia and we can get you know, in, in a sense.

In summary, it’s kind, it’s a people business. And, and, and we are the people that can help, you know, put a face to the negotiations. So that’s our primary toolkit. But you. I guess, over the last couple of years and because of you know, the big impact of COVID and the sudden dislocation of losing one of our, losing access to one of our biggest markets in China.

You know, our mantra is, and we will give this advice to anybody, is safe, business is diversified. So diversification is the key word and we are really keen to help Australian exporters. I guess build a whole portfolio so that they’ve got a whole series of markets into which they’re exporting so that they can take advantage of that trade diversification.

That is the key word. And that’s what we are continue to continuing to commit to, to help Australian exporters make sure you know that they’re diversifying to get a balanced portfolio of export markets.

Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: So any exporter effectively who would like to diversify the markets to get in touch with Austrade simple as that. Right. That’s the message.

David Lawson, Austrade: Please do. Yep. I’ll say that number again. 132 878. But you know, we’ve got enormous resources just on our website as well.

And because it’s a government run organization, government organization. So, the website is pretty straightforward, austrade.gov.au au and there’s an enormous amount of information sector specific information country specific information. All kinds of information. I gave a little bit of a snapshot earlier about the flights.

You know, we are now back up to 75% of all flights. So you can go there and onto that website and find the export supply chain snapshot, for example, and register there. And but 132 878, give us a call. There’s people that man the phones that will be able to, you know, to point you in the right direction and, and connect.

And if you’re offshore and, and you need to get in contact and you think you want to either buy something from Australia, reach out to the Australian embassy you know, our marketing team, so the Austrade focus team in each of our embassies, high commissions, consulates, general, you know, we’ll be able to get you in contact with a supplier from a.

Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: That, that is very useful information, David. We will also put all this information along with the podcast and on the YouTube as well, and the description, the links so people can get that. Now, David, Australia is an island nation and as you said before, we have always relied on trade.

And now in this circumstances of uncertainty across the world because of the factors that we, you also mentioned now we are relying on that more than ever before. What, how do you see Australia in the global exporting context and yeah, what, what’s your position from your perspective?

David Lawson, Austrade: Look, you know, in, if you look across everything that we export, there are some sectors where we are a dominant you know, supplier of products to the world. and, you know, I’m thinking fuels and minerals, for example energy products. You know, we are a dominant player.

But I guess you, you know, because we are an island, you know, we’re a continent, but we’re also really an island nation. Some, something that is a really terrific strength, I guess, for Australian exporters is that we can rely on the fact that we have very good phytosanitary rules. You know, it’s, it’s very strict when you enter Australia, as we know, going through customs and quarantine.

We are very fastidious to make sure that we protect our environment. You know, many countries tell us that they, you know, that they produce clean and green. The fact is that we have terrific a terrific track record in, in maintaining a very clean environment. So we do guarantee. Excellent quality of our produce.

And, and you know, that’s something that we can trade on. We’re building our nation brand globally to help rein, you know, reassure our customers that we are a safe supplier that will never let them down. That will continue no matter what. Even with supply chain disruptions that we’ll continue to strive to make sure that we can.

In partnership with our customers offshore, to bring the best of our Australian produce, in particular, you know, to markets throughout, you know, throughout Asia and beyond. A very big part of the Australian economy, of course, is that we are also open to investment. and so many of our big exporters and, and our big export industries are built on the fact that there.

Foreign investment to kick that off. Really great little case study in the food sector. You know, as a company, if you go into Australian supermarkets, there’s a whole shelf now for rice crackers. You know, 25 years ago you have to go to a specialist boutique Asian import grocery to be able to get rice crackers.

Now, you know, everyone. Eats rice crackers. We have them with dips. We know we have them as a snack. They’re just everywhere. And multiple brands. So a little story from when I first joined Australia was they, this company called Sakata had made an initial investment in Australia to manufacture. Their intention was to manufacture rice crackers to export back to Japan coz it’s cheaper using Austrade.

Cheaper and, you know, just great quality inputs into, into manufacturer of rice crackers. Well, that opened up a whole category in Australia. So we all eat rice crackers and, you know, Saka is a, has a big market share in Australia, but from that base in Melbourne, they’re also exporting all over Southeast Asia.

So they took the concept that, that foreign investment from a little company in northern Japan. Has grown a whole category in Australia and from that base in Australia is now exporting the around the I was in a supermarket in Toronto one time and there’s skato rice crackers. You know, it was, it was great to see that over these decades, that investment has helped.

It, it, it helps in so many ways. It builds jobs in Australia. But it also guarantees a great quality product to go around the world. And, and you that’s done in partnership through investment and then through the work that we do to help promote the exports.

Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Yeah, that’s a fantastic story actually.

Getting the product. Getting investment in Australia. , And then it becomes a category for Australia themselves. So, very interesting. Now if I don’t ask you your involvement in some of the sectors which are which, which are some of the US are from for example, meat exports industry horticulture grain industry, grain exports.

They are, we have a bulk of you know, viewers and listeners from those industries. So what would you tell them in terms of working with you and, and some of the experiences that you might have in those industries?

David Lawson, Austrade: Yeah. So, look, if, if you’re an Australian company, we’ll help you if we can.

But you know, a lot of those industries are very well organized and meat are really good example. So, you know, Meat and Livestock Australia is the international marketing body for the meat sector. You know, they have you know, terrific campaigns throughout the world to really grow our you know, the appreciation within.

Markets of the quality of Australian meat and, and you know, just as a, as an example, because I spent so much time in Japan, in fact, the Aussie beef logo is one of the 10 top 10 retail logos in supermarkets in Japan because over decades now, Meat and Livestock Australia has invested in in building that brand.

So in, in some areas the, the key industry associations, you know, they know exactly what needs to happen to grow to grow understanding in target markets, but we work very closely with them. In some cases, a meat company, for example, or a dairy company, so they work very closely with Dairy Australia.

Another you know, really important sector that promotes the excellence of the Australian dairy sector throughout the world. For example, might come to us and we’re already in this market, but we need to find a new distributor, or we need to find some you know, some new category.

So we get down and do, I guess the gorilla work on a, on an enterprise to enterprise level you know, in partnership with those industry associations, which is so important. So in e, each of those sectors, whether it’s seafood, whether it’s wine, whether it’s horticulture what did I miss. Nuts, wool, cotton.

You know, we work really closely with all of those sectors to make sure that, you know, we’re all pushing in the one direction and all putting our shoulder to the wheel to help, you know, the Australian exporter maximize the opportunities they can get from international trade.

Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: David, this was really educational as well as informational podcast for even me.

I mean, your examples, some of the examples that you gave are, are that, that explains how you help them. I mean, that makes it real. And yeah, I would strongly recommend all the viewers who are in the exports from Australia or you are interested in importing from Australia. Get in touch with your Austrade representative in your country.

Of course in Australia, very easy to get in touch with them. Even overseas you can get in touch with them via the website. And you’ll find, I’m assuming David, the right representatives from the country. Is that correct?

David Lawson, Austrade: Absolutely. Yep. Okay. So we have locally engaged staff. We have trade commissioners in, in, you know, all our key markets. We’ve got you covered.

Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Excellent. David, thanks a lot for your time. Thank you for the conversation.

David Lawson, Austrade: Look forward to assisting all the listeners as much as we can. Thanks very much for your time.

ImpexDocs: This has been the Global Trade Made Easy podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you don’t miss an episode of Innovative Ideas from Trade Leaders across the globe. For even more insights on global trade, visit our website at impexdocs.com.au, where we share resources for successful international trade management. Until next time, happy trading.

The post Global Trade Made Easy with Austrade appeared first on ImpexDocs.

In this episode, we welcome Nathan Hyde, CEO of Yarra Valley Dairy and Nikki Rynia, Export Manager of Yarra Valley Dairy.

Nathan and Nikki share many insights on this 20-year export success story, including:

• How the company started from an experiment in a family home.
• The steps to growing an iconic Australian brand.
• The artisan cheese product that put Yarra Valley Dairy on the map.
• How they’ve experienced up to 60% growth, despite the pandemic.
• Why competitors cannot emulate their premium product.
• How they overhauled their brand for a greater connection to the product.
• Why ‘world domination’ isn’t always better.
• The must-have business ingredient to list within a supermarket.
• How they circumnavigated challenges, and the lessons you can apply to your business.
• How to spread your risk in terms of distribution.
• 5 Top Tips to enter the export market.

Nathan Hyde is CEO of Yarra Valley Dairy, Australia’s much-loved, award-winning artisan cheese manufacturer. With a 20-year successful history of exporting to global markets, Yarra Valley Dairy and Yarra Valley Cheese is located in one of Australia’s premium wine and dairy locations, with a cheese factory and cheese shop on-site. To learn more, visit https://yvd.com.au/

Episode 2: Yarra Valley Dairy

[00:00:00] Nikki Rynia, Export Manager, Yarra Valley Dairy: So we have previously for about 20 years, we’ve been exporting to the middle east. So that market has been fantastic throughout COVID as well. We’ve seen some really good growth. 46% growth from pre COVID numbers.

[00:00:13] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Hello and welcome to the Global Trade Made Easy Podcast. In this podcast, we speak to the global trade leaders, innovators and influences from around the world. and Australia. We talk about ideas that can disrupt your organization, industry, or even careers. So let’s dig in.

Hi everybody. This is Tejus Oza I’m the Chief Revenue Marketing Officer for Impex Docs. In today’s show, we will be talking to Nathan Hyde, CEO of Yarra Valley Dairy. And also Nikki Rynia, the Export Manager from Yarra Valley Dairy.

Welcome, Nathan and Nikki.

[00:00:45] Nathan Hyde, CEO, Yarra Valley Dairy: Thank you. Thank you very much, Tejus. Good to be with you.

[00:00:48] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Good to be with you as well. Let’s talk about the inception of Yarra Valley Dairy. Can you tell us a little bit about how Yarra Valley Dairy started or how you got engaged Nathan with Yarra Valley Dairy and, uh, the journey so far.

[00:01:02] Nathan Hyde, CEO, Yarra Valley Dairy: Sure. I will let Nikki take you through the journey of the dairy, but I joined the business three years ago. So, as the CEO. A long background in food and beverage, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, and so on. The real appeal for me was to join a business that had brand integrity and also something that I could, uh, work with a great team and shape and, you know, put them into a position that really has us at the forefront of that artisan cheese making within Australia.

And it’s an industry that was fledgling for a little while there, but it really seems to be lifting and growing. And interest in cheese at the moment is very strong. The progression of our brands is pretty high in demand. A while ago I created the role of Export Manager. Nikki’s been with the business for around about 12 plus years.

Initially as National Sales Manager and then Nicki had a break to spend some time with her family and a well deserved one I might add. But I wanted to keep Nikki engaged in the business because of Nikki’s experience and also understanding of the whole artisan cheese category. And so I just asked Nikki to come back in a capacity that worked for her more than anything else and her family.

And so Nik’s been doing the export role now for around about 18 months and is really starting to make some solid inroads. And we’ll talk more about that later on, but Nik it’d be great if you could take Tejus through the history of the dairy, how it came about. Cuz I think you’re a bit stronger in that area than me to be honest.

[00:02:42] Nikki Rynia, Export Manager, Yarra Valley Dairy: Very happy to. One of the things I’ve loved about working at the dairy is being able to be a part of this story. You know, and to work with Mary Mooney, who is the original owner of the dairy, who really started this whole vision and business. So it’s been, yeah, an incredible journey to be part of that story.

And really where that story began was in 1994, when Mary who lived on the farm, which was her original family’s home, began to experiment with making some cheese, really for her family. So it was a really simple style cheese that she was making. I think originally she was even hanging the cheese from, you know, cheese cloth on the back of a chair in the kitchen.

It was a very simple, soft farmhouse style of cheese. But Mary’s absolute dedication and persistence and vision to create something unique was what started the process of creating Persian Feta. So Australia’s first marinated cheese, which I think most people listening, I hope have tried this style of cheese and are well versed in Yarra Valley Dairy Persian Feta. So for me, it was a real no brainer. Same as Nathan, to come on board with a really iconic Australian brand and be part of that story. And being part of a family owned business. If anyone out there is, has been, part of one, you know you really do become part of the family.

It’s incredible. And I think people, when I meet them, they just assume that I am actually one of the members of the family. Because you do, you get so incredibly passionate and you get involved in all different areas of the business from, you know, where I started, which was in the factory washing cheese molds, to making cheese. Terrible cheese, by the way. I only lasted about a week in that role before the team, I think, realized I’d be better talking about cheese and selling it, than making. But I think it really is just about being part of such an iconic Australian brand for us working with Mary and an incredible team. To just keep that tradition alive and make handmade, beautiful cheeses.

It is a slow process. You have to be dedicated, I think, to be part of artisan cheese in Australia. It’s not a commodity cheese, it’s a very artisan product that we make. But yeah, just an incredible journey to be part of it.

[00:04:59] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: That’s a beautiful story. So tell me one thing you mentioned Persian Feta. Tell me more about it.

[00:05:05] Nikki Rynia, Export Manager, Yarra Valley Dairy: Absolutely. Have you tried it?

[00:05:06] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: I have actually.

[00:05:08] Nikki Rynia, Export Manager, Yarra Valley Dairy: So I think the most incredible thing about Persian Feta is it’s very different to a traditional feta. It really is this indulgent, incredibly creamy like luscious mouth feel that you get from this product. And one of the main difference is being cows milk.

So traditionally feta is a goat or sheep combination, but what makes our product so incredible, it is this incredibly decadent, creamy cows milk cheese that you get at the base of this product. It’s then brined or dry salted and marinated in oil and herbs. We use only the best milk that we can source. The best herbs.

All of the ingredients are really premium. So the end result is just an incredibly beautiful and decadent product. We’ve found over the years, a lot of people have emulated this style of cheese, but if you cut corners with this style of cheese, you just don’t get the overall premium product that it needs to be.

And I think that’s why it’s stood the test of time and has been championed by chefs and retailers, and delis for over 25 years now.

[00:06:14] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: I’m only feeling like having some Persian Feta cheese now. You explain so beautifully. So Nikki, tell me one thing in your new role of being the Export Manager, what’s the role and how do you go about finding your markets and what do you do.

[00:06:30] Nikki Rynia, Export Manager, Yarra Valley Dairy: Yeah. So when I first came back to the dairy in the role of export manager, I was looking for a challenge, but my goodness COVID. I picked a very challenging time to come back in this role. And I, look, I had big plans to travel, to get out into new markets, to meet buyers, to conduct tastings, and all the fantastic things that you would do as part of an export strategy. But unfortunately, with COVID that wasn’t a possibility. So for me, it was a good opportunity to go back to the drawing board, to look at our story, to look at our ingredients, our packaging, and really, you know, so for me, it was about reigniting with what our story was, what made us incredibly unique, and why export markets would be interested in the product.

So it’s been an incredible process to do that. To take that story and those products out to the market. It’s been very challenging to get people, to sample the product, obviously with freight, being an issue. But the interest that we now have, I think the perception of Australian products overseas is they are premium.

So we’re in a good space there. And I think particularly dairy, I think the interest in Australian dairy is growing immensely. So it’s really been about getting our story out there, getting products out to people. And look, as soon as I can get back out in the markets and start traveling again, it’s gonna be fantastic.

Cause I think, for me, it’s such an incredible product. I can just let the product do the talking.

[00:08:01] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Right, right. Makes sense. And in terms of your current target markets, what are those target markets you’re looking at for your cheese?

[00:08:10] Nikki Rynia, Export Manager, Yarra Valley Dairy: So we have previously for about 20 years, we’ve been exporting to the Middle East.

So that market has been fantastic throughout COVID as well. We’ve seen some really good growth, you know, sort of 40%, 60% growth from pre COVID numbers, there. So, we’re looking to increase our retail opportunities in those markets.

The UK, we have incredible interest from the market over there. But freight has been a challenge. We’re hoping to be back in the US in the next 12 months. Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea is just about to come on board. So we’ve got a lot of interest. I think the good thing for us is being a handmade product.

We’re not looking for world domination. We’re just looking to find the right fit in the right market. So we’re looking for the high end premium delis, retail spaces. So at the moment, it really is just about finding the right distribution and the right fit.

[00:09:06] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Right, right. Understand, understand. And, Nathan, you joined as a CEO before some time. Can I ask you, what’s your vision for Yarra Valley Dairy?

[00:09:19] Nathan Hyde, CEO, Yarra Valley Dairy: Look, there’s a couple of answers there, Tejus. It’s Yarra Valley Dairy itself. We want position as one of the leading handmade artists and cheese products in this country and internationally. Yarra Valley Cheese, which is made in a different technique to Yarra Valley Dairy, but still a premium product.

And that is really well positioned through our major trading partners, such as Woolworths and Coles and Costco, Aldi. And again, that’s a great opportunity for us to enter markets such as the UAE, New Zealand, because they’re quite strong with supermarket trade themselves. So it’s a really good footprint for us to get in there.

When I first came on board, it was about working out and restructuring both brands, because the team were a little confused with what Yarra Valley Cheese meant to them and what Yarra Valley Dairy meant to them. So our marketing manager worked very hard on gathering data and working out what those brands actually meant to our consumers.

And certainly the first piece of work that Catherine did was the Yarra Valley Cheese rebrand. But also digging into what the values of that brand were and why do our consumers love it? Why do they want to eat this? Why is it growing with our trading partners? And so the vision was to get the brands right, and for the team internally to understand who we are pushing towards.

As Nikki mentioned that about picking the right partners internationally for us and what brands sit where. So it’s not about chasing volume. We have interest from a major trading partner in the United States, and if they push the go button tomorrow, capacity wise we would be in a world of pain. So a nice challenge to have, right. But it’s, again, a lot of capital expenditure to build and expand.

Ideally, what we want to do is position ourselves as a leading premium artisan cheese maker in our areas of expertise. But to also then underpin that with financial stability for the business to move forward so that we can do that confidently and expand our footprint essentially.

And that might be through manufacturing or building new facilities or whatever it may be into the future. So, that’s a decision that Mary and some of her board and confidants would make that decision on, in conjunction hopefully with myself. But, I think where we’re headed at the moment and certainly creating the role of export, is more about making sure that we spread our risk as a business as well.

I love doing business with everybody, but it’s good that you don’t have, you know, one particular trading partner that might be 25, 30, 35% of your business and if you lose a listing within a supermarket, it can hurt you quite badly from a cashflow perspective.

So our mantra really is to get awareness of the brands, but we want to do it in the way that we’ve always done it. And that’s about letting the products speak for itself. But Nikki will tell you more about this, but the rebrand of Yarra Valley Dairy, the labeling is just second to none. Some of the photographs and videos that have been done recently for that brand, like you said earlier, Tejus, where Nikki’s describing the cheese, it makes you want to eat it.

You look at some of these visuals and you look at the rebranding of Yarra Valley Dairy and Yarra Valley Cheese, and I’m very proud of the team of where they’ve got it to. Because it actually speaks a premium product to our audience.

[00:12:58] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Nice. So obviously your strategy is expand the revenue and cash flow sources, I guess. Yarra Valley being a position that it is a premium brand, but position as on the premium brand, uh, your strategies that you want to distribute through supermarkets, if I heard Nikki, correct. And Nathan, you also mentioned that, you know, some of those markets have strong supermarket culture, strong supermarket environment. And that helps your brand to get distributed as well. So am I hearing it right? That’s the core strategy, that’s how you are thinking, Nikki?

[00:13:35] Nikki Rynia, Export Manager, Yarra Valley Dairy: Yeah, I think, as Nathan mentioned, because we do have two brands within the company.

So we have our Yarra Valley Cheese brand, which we do service more of the FMCG market and our Yarra Valley Dairy brand, which is more fruit service. It’s more your premium artisan ranging. So we do have the ability to service both markets. And absolutely I think within some of the markets that we’re approaching there is opportunity within the supermarket space. I think for me, it’s, you know, as it has worked domestically here, to champion the artisan range within food service, you know, to have chefs who are putting that product on the menu, you know, recognizing that it is Yarra Valley Dairy, marinated cheese.

I think is such a great way to get some gravitas behind the brand and some interest with the product. And that’s where we’re really lucky to have those two brands. So we can sit in both of those spaces.

[00:14:33] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Yep. Makes sense. Makes sense. Absolutely. And you mentioned some challenges obviously because of COVID, et cetera. How has been the business in last 12 months? How is it looking currently and what are the key challenges at the moment?

[00:14:50] Nikki Rynia, Export Manager, Yarra Valley Dairy: So for export, really it’s the similar challenges that most exporters have been facing, obviously with freight, with port delays.

I think we’ve been so lucky with the existing markets where we’ve had those relationships, and those logistics set ups already in place. We’ve been really lucky to keep those markets going, but new markets has been a huge challenge during COVID. You have buyers overseas who are similar to they are here.

They’re stressed, they’re understaffed. They’re trying to minimize risk. So sometimes taking on board a new customer that you haven’t received a shipment of before, or trial the product, was a risk. Getting buyers to move forward with a product without having any sampling available in store.

It’s hard for us going into a lot of markets, because marinated fresh cheese isn’t even a product in a lot of markets globally. I recently was entering our cheese in a world cheese award and there wasn’t even a category for marinated cheese. So it shows you that we’re really going onto a global arena that consumers are not sure really yet what to do with this product.

So for us to get that message and show people what the application is with this new product, without doing that with sampling, has proven very tricky. I think that’s why you were saying I’m getting better at talking about cheese because for the last 12 months, I’ve had to sit in front of buyers and eat cheese on the screen and talk about it, which is, it’s very, very tricky.

And staff has been a huge challenge, hasn’t it Nathan? I think domestically, I think everyone’s in the same boat there. But we are feeling a bit of ease I think in that department. We’ve been able to hire some incredible staff members over the last couple of weeks. And cost of goods.

[00:16:37] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Right, right. Yeah, I mean, this is something which, I guess, many Australian businesses, in fact, most businesses around the world are facing. Would that be fair to say, Nathan, is that the kind of challenges which we are facing in Australia and you as a business as well? The other dairy manufacturers around the world or, your competitors, in other market or other countries as an example, or even in Australia, are facing probably the similar kind of challenges, right?

[00:17:04] Nathan Hyde, CEO, Yarra Valley Dairy: Yeah, absolutely they are. I’ve described the the second half of financial year 22 is the most challenging six months I’ve ever seen in business.

It really came to the forefront for myself in about the middle of December last year. And there’s been a lot of sleepless nights. There has been, you know, how do we cycle through this? Because all of a sudden one of our key ingredients, the second most valuable ingredient that goes into our product in terms of oil, doubled in price in, you know, in not a very long space of time.

And to pass on price increases is quite a logistical challenge in particular with our trading partners who do expect a 90 day period where they can adjust their own pricing. This was followed up by labor shortages and then labor increases in terms of costs, raw material costs in terms of packaging increasing.

And then usually the new year milk pricing you’ll receive that from the farm is usually in May, first week of May. So that’s when I usually finalize the budget for the next financial year. Once we’ve got that and can work out what the cost of goods are going to be. I received that on the 28th of June, at 6:00 PM and nearly fell off my chair because it was a 35.2% price increase in milk.

Now this has sort of been brought around from, uh, we are lucky. We’ve had a relationship with suppliers for quite some time, and we know the quality of product we get is outstanding. And as a business, and one of our core values is that we do pay farm gate levies because the farmers have done it hard for a number of years.

And good on them this year. They’re making, as the old expression goes, make hay while the sun shines. We had to lock in our annual volume straight away because I had my priority was to protect the business based on what we see as a forecast, as a budget for the year. And at this point in time in Australia is going to be a shortage of milk in certainly the second half of financial year into 2023.

Now that depends on what international markets do. There’s a small rumor that maybe New Zealand might have some excess milk, which could find its way across to Australia and assist with some dairy products, being cheese and so on. We personally wouldn’t use it because we hang our hat on the fact that we’re 99.9% of Australian content. And we source as much locally as we possibly can.

So, yeah, very challenging period. We had a terrific catch up with the team on Wednesday and we sort of talked about where we, I love to do a reflection piece with the team and we talk about, you know, 12 months ago when we did the planning for the financial year just gone. And each of the team, I don’t think anyone gets an opportunity to stop and think about what they’ve done and what they’ve achieved within that 12 month period against what their strategies were for the year. And I think each and every departmental head that talked about the year had just about ticked most of those boxes, except for a lot of the unforeseen ones that nobody saw coming. So again, really good planning from the team. But the second half hit us pretty hard.

We saw, as I said, the cost increases and small revenue increases, but that’s offset by price increases and some severely hefty ones as well. So, um, we were very fortunate that for the start of financial year, I managed to have some meetings with some of the senior executives within our trading partners and talk to them about the challenges ahead and they have all very supportive in moving the prices forward and wanting to support Australia dairy industry, which is great, and we’re also very grateful for.

Nikki, same thing, uh, trying to establish some of these export markets and then going straight back to our trading partners internationally and saying, oh, by the way, I’m terribly sorry, but we’ve gotta lift the prices before we’ve even shipped a box. And again, very supportive understanding what the challenges are within. So, um, unfortunately it’s an erosion of farmers not having made enough money in previous years off their cattle, for milking purposes.

So the amount of cattle in Australia available for dairy has dwindled across the years. It’s showing signs of recovery and it now needs encouragement from bodies, such as Dairy Australia, and dairy industry, that will try and encourage farmers to continue to expand that. And, uh, I’ve always been a believer in paying a fair price for materials so that it’s more sustainable, longer term.

Let’s fix prices for three years, five years, whatever it might be. And if that’s a higher price at the beginning, that’s okay. And if the market fluctuates up and down, it still protects everybody. When I first joined the business, we couldn’t lock in milk contracts for 12 month period because it was literally, if there was an abundance, it would be cheaper. If there was a shortage, you would pay a lot more. I explained and sat down with suppliers that we couldn’t operate like that and have a model that way, because it’s, we can’t have these major fluctuations on our cost of goods because it’s all at the wrong time of year. We need to set out an average.

So we managed to work with, uh, suppliers that lock in prices for us for 12 month period, so that we can cover the financial year quite soundly and, and know what we’re reporting against.

[00:22:35] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: It makes so much of sense, you know, locking in prices that gives you this certainty that also gives your customer certainty of pricing.

So I think that’s very, very nice, and then makes so much of sense. Now talking about May. You referred to May in another way, but, uh, I, I, uh, read one of the news pieces that you had won some award of where in the Dairy Industry Association, of the national product awards, one of the awards for your cheese, is that correct Nikki?

[00:23:03] Nikki Rynia, Export Manager, Yarra Valley Dairy: We actually won the World Cheese Awards about 15 years ago for the Persian Fetta. We produce an amazing array of products. So we have our marinated cheeses, but we also make, um, as we mentioned, the Hubert’s which is an incredible washed rind cheese, and our semi-mature goats cheeses quite often win awards.

Our Gentle Goat, which is a very beautiful, fresh goats cheese, quite often wins awards as well. And that product is just it’s really a testimony to the pure, goat milk, the amazing goat milk that we purchased from a farm in Mansfield.

[00:23:40] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: So Nikki tell me one thing. You told me that you have spoken in last 12 months online, uh, tested cheese, talked about it, to new potential customers and new customers, or even existing customers for the new products, et cetera. Um, tell me, what do you tell your potential new buyers about your cheese? Why they should be choosing your products versus your competitors products?

[00:24:06] Nikki Rynia, Export Manager, Yarra Valley Dairy: Yeah, absolutely. Our products are obviously all Australian made from premium local milk. Um, as I mentioned earlier, many people have tried to emulate the style of Persian Feta since its creation in 94. But one of the key elements of Persian Feta is obviously Australian ingredients, premium ingredients.

A lot of people in Australia make a style of Persian Feta, which unfortunately can sit at around 30% Australian ingredients. There are a lot of producers who will purchase, Danish, feta, or fetas from other parts of the world and then repackage that here in Australia. So we pride ourselves on only producing from Australian ingredients.

Our recipe has not really changed since 1994 before when Mary first created the product. The only difference that we have made, is just improvements to the packaging, looking at sustainability. Uh, we are always looking to improve the ingredients and make sure, for example, you know, we’ve recently changed our garlic to Australian garlic so always looking for improvements.

[00:25:15] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: So Nathan, we talked about last 12 months, we talked about some of the challenges, et cetera. I guess markets are changing. Uh, the freight situation is stabilizing slightly, uh, as compared to last, uh, let’s say six months, eight months back. What is your future strategy, let’s say for next 24, 12 to 24 months. How do you see the business? And what are your key elements of the strategy?

[00:25:43] Nathan Hyde, CEO, Yarra Valley Dairy: When we’ve taken on board all of these price increases that I’ve spoken to you about in terms of raw materials, for us when we’ve passed on those price increases, it’s about stabilizing.

I wouldn’t refer to us as opportunists and think that we could add a little bit more margin and make a little bit more money. We want to work with our partners in terms of making sure that we deliver, uh, a great product that’s good value to the consumer overall. So that is always top of mind and key as part of our strategy. Is that everything we do is the very best that we can put out all the time.

So we monitor quality all the time. In terms of freight issues and challenges. Um, Nikki knows my thoughts on terms of, we like to do everything FOB when it’s going into the export markets, because the fluctuations, the freight generally, we don’t make money on freight. We don’t wanna make money on freight.

So if people are asking us for, um, CIF terms, it’s really hard. We’ve been fortunate enough to, uh, have been served in first class on Emirates for, it’s now in its 14th year with Yarra Valley Dairy Persian Feta. Now we export 20 foot refrigerated reefers across to them.

When I joined the business, you’re talking about $2,500 thereabouts to, uh, get that from the Port of Melbourne into Dubai. That’s now pushing up towards $13,000 in that, in what are we talking three years? It’s incredible. And, uh, Emirates have not faulted in the fact that they still want to serve that product.

And yes, if you travel first class, I’m sure the additional freight cost can be factored and allowed for. But it it also adds a layer of complexity to their business in terms of additional costs as well. So, uh, when that happens, it’s like everything, it all pushes back onto all of us. We pay more for airfares and so on and so forth.

So look, our strategy is about keeping our portfolio very high quality, fairly simple. We have a new product development team, which Nikki is a part of. So we’re always looking at innovation within the business that meets the ethos and values of the business. So it has to remain preservative free. It has to remain, you know, going into sustainable packaging. It has to be something that is within the realms of what we are capable of doing, but also delivering something to our consumers to make sure that they are trying new products. So, we certainly have a fairly full calendar for the next, uh, 12 to 24 months.

So range, expansion, market expansion, and again, taking the key risks out of business by spreading our risk in terms of distribution and who we work with around the world.

[00:28:37] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Nice, nice. So if I just play it back, what I heard from you, basically, we are talking about changing the terms, commercial terms and core terms, which will make sure the freight, do not become the barrier as such, in a way, from your, perspective, right?

Changing to FOB where possible, that’s one thing, obviously, new market development with the new product introductions. That’s the other thrust of the strategy. They’re the core factors. Plus obviously keeping, uh, the overall quality extremely high as per ethos and principles, that they are the key elements of the strategy. Would that be fair submission?

[00:29:15] Nathan Hyde, CEO, Yarra Valley Dairy: Yeah, it’s a very good summary, absolutely spot on. We’re not an overly complicated business, it’s, it is more about making sure that people are safe products safe, um, and, and what we deliver to the consumer is absolutely spot on.

So, and also giving the team that confidence in our products as well. I mean, it’s great to sit down with a member from the production team and say, do you realize that, you know, that tub of Persian Feta that you’ve just made sells for $16. And they look at you and they go, does it really? You know, I’m say, look, when you go into a supermarket, take a look at it, take some pride because you’ve done that. You’ve had a hand in making that.

And that really makes somebody feel quite good. That cheese that you mentioned earlier, that Hubert’s. When we were developing that product and we’ve done a lot of work on that. Nikki was part of that team in Nikki’s previous role and, uh, Nikki and Catherine, who’s, the marketing manager, came to me and they said, right, this is the product. And took me through the whole premise of it. And talked about our distribution partner in Australia here, Calendar Cheese Company for Yarra Valley Dairy and what price points could it retail for? And I looked at the price list. I looked at the market. And I said, I’d like to position this is a 180 gram piece of cheese. Washed rind.

I said, I’d like to position it at a retail price point of $18. Cath and Nikki nearly threw it at me and uh, and said, you’re kidding. That’s gonna be the most expensive washed rind in Australia. And I said, good. And let’s make it the best washed rind in Australia. So we spent a lot of time working with our artisan cheese maker to get it right, because, certainly, and let me tell you, we wasted a lot of product.

But eventually we got it right. That cheese now sells for over $20. And as you saw, it won the award and we’re super proud of it. It’s actually one of the biggest selling products in our retail venue. And we see approximately, you know, 250,000 visitors a year in a full year when there’s no lockdowns.

Nobody’s got a problem with buying it. Our distribution partner, they can’t get enough. We can only make a certain amount of it. But we still need to continue to innovate. So, certainly something I give a lot of thought to, and where we sit as a product I’d like to develop into, uh, into our major trading partners. And position that in a different part of the cheese category that they wouldn’t even contemplate. And the reason I wanna do that is because from a price point and quality perspective, I want it to sit in a different area, because it’s got a premium feel to it. And you know, most people, if it’s sat in the area, uh, of, of snacking, for example, we would stand out like a sore thumb because the price point would be double and a bit more. If you put that into a premium cheese area within a supermarket, I think it would sell, cuz people would see it and they’d look it up and they’d go, oh yeah, good. I trust the brand. And I think that is what we work so hard on is getting people to trust our brand. And that’s also part of our long term strategy.

[00:32:32] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: So tell me, Nikki. About this cheese I’m quite intrigued. So you brought the cheese to Nathan and his assessment was it’s a premium cheese to that level. Tell me about the cheese now.

[00:32:48] Nikki Rynia, Export Manager, Yarra Valley Dairy: Absolutely. So our inspiration for this product really was an. So really stinky, traditional French style wash rind. Which we, uh, you know, it was MP Dairy is one of the, the reasons why I’ve been here for so long. Some weeks I’ll have to sit around with the team and spend, you know, a good two or three hours a week just tasting cheese. And it is, it’s always a good day in the dairy when we are doing MP day. And we were very particular how we wanted this cheese to evolve.

We wanted it to take on its own life. I think like with any cheeses when you’re inspired by France or Italy you take inspiration from these cheeses. But when you make it here in Australia, with the milk, with the cheese makers, the different microbiology of the factory, it becomes something else.

It really becomes our take on this product and that’s how that product evolved. And I think, you know, we were a bit nervous to take on such a traditional French style cheese and make it our own. I think that’s where the hesitation came. You know, around just really owning it and moving forward and charging the price that we really needed to, to make this product worthwhile.

But my goodness, you know, it’s almost surpassed Persian Feta sales here at the dairy in the cheese shop. And it’s an incredible addition for both cheese boards, We do a baked top pot here in our cheese shop, which I was saying before you just dig in with crusty bread into this incredible product.

And, uh, it’s become a bit of a cult hit really here in the cheese shop. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to export that to the Middle East because it is washed in Brandy, but I’ll be finding some new markets for it hopefully soon. It is a challenge with shelf life with the semi mature products, because you’re really, you’re only looking at about six to eight week shelf life from production.

So, for me, minimizing risk and export at the moment, I’m really focusing on the marinaded cheeses, which have around six months shelf life. I’d have a few sleepless nights, I think, if I was exporting the six week, at the moment.

[00:34:53] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Incredible. I’m looking forward to you finding ways to export it. It sounds like a fantastic product and yeah, I will visit your premises, especially to have that special recipe that you’re saying it’s becoming a cult. Fantastic.

[00:35:07] Nikki Rynia, Export Manager, Yarra Valley Dairy: And look, I think the great thing about exporting into new markets with this marinated cheese, is that, you know, we’re sending a product that is so typically Australian. I think in Australia, cheese making is relatively new, uh, in the industry.

And there’s not a lot of cheeses that we can call an Australian cheese. But since we created marinated cheeses in Australia, it really has become, well, it’s become a category in its own. Right. And I think in most retail spaces, it’ll be very hard to find a cheese section that doesn’t have some kind of representation of marinated fresh cheeses.

So I think there’s such an opportunity to grow that in export and make our own space. You know, really selling what is, what we say is just a jar of sunshine. It really is. It’s an example of Australia’s love of, you know, outdoors, salads, sharing food, premium products. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, say for example, in Europe and try and sell an Australian Cam or Bri, where we’re really selling a piece of Australian, lifestyle and a representation of our culture.

[00:36:16] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Nice. So this is what I wanted to, you know, understand more. Tell me about this history of the marinated cheese. You’re telling me that, uh, Yarra Valley Dairy was the first in Australia to come up with this marinated cheese. Tell me about it because that’s a story what I think people should know.

[00:36:34] Nikki Rynia, Export Manager, Yarra Valley Dairy: Yeah, and look, it’s a great story. Mary was inspired. When she first started to produce a fresh cheese of some way of preserving the product and creating something new. I think she was around the time she invented it she was working with a lot of wineries and producers in the Yarra Valley.

I think around that time it was sun dried tomatoes were a big thing in the Yarra Valley. And I think that was her initial inspiration with the olive oil marinade. And she also worked with a cheese maker at the time who had been inspired by a lot of traditional preserving techniques.

So yeah, the idea was to marinate the product.

[00:37:11] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Nathan, you have been exporting in such a long time at Yarra Valley Dairy. What would be your suggestion or guidance to any new exporter, or even your peers, uh, who wants to get into the export market?

What would be your suggestion to them? What should they keep in mind and how should they go?

[00:37:36] Nathan Hyde, CEO, Yarra Valley Dairy: Firstly, I’d say that choosing the right partner is paramount in any market and just making sure that the trading partners that you, you approach and you talk to you do a number of things.

So you really should be doing a fair amount of research in terms of their reach into the market, talking to some of their customers within the market to see how they perform. And how they treat your product in terms of logistics. But making sure most importantly, that it’s a fit for your brand, and that your brand is being represented to the level that you would like it to be.

And that is supported with, you know, Nikki being available to be in market moving forward. But really, to me, it’s about doing research to start with. It’s about having an innate understanding of your own brand and working out where you want to position it. Where do you want to be in that market?

Nikki and I spoke at huge length about where we wanted to be in the United Kingdom. And it was all about working with premium delis and cheese shops and going through a premium distributor. And it wasn’t about chasing the volume. It was about let’s build the brand slowly. And Nikki fought like crazy to get some product over to the UK because logistics was a nightmare.

And the great team at Austrade represented us at the London Food Fair. And what a hit, what an absolute hit. So that really gave us the impetus to work with this particular company. And this is who we will work with moving forward. But that’s taken Nikki I reckon the best part of 12 months to identify that company and to position our brand based against the brand values and our company values and who we want to work with.

So it’s more important that you find a positioning for your brand, but having that innate understanding of that plan. Where do you want to be? Which market channels do you want to go into? Who do you wanna speak to and how does your brand get represented? And certainly, in the past there’s always been a real, um, you know, particularly in my background wine industry, days from years ago, you would sometimes go and chase a volume market, and that would backfire more times than not, because you really didn’t have your plans, your brand plans and all those sorts of things in place and knowing the channels that you wanted to get into. So for us, it was a lot of consideration and thought before going there. And I’d recommend that to anybody. If it takes you an extra six months to find the right distribution partner, I would suggest that that’s okay.

[00:40:25] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: That’s really sound advice. Especially in today’s circumstances, it becomes even more important. So thank you, Nathan. That was, um, I’m sure people will benefit from the advice and from your experience. Thank you very much.

It is a fantastic story and I wish Yarra Valley Dairy and the Yarra Valley Cheese, both the brands, really well. Some of our best artisan cheese. So all the best. I would love to visit you when I’m in Victoria.

[00:40:51] Nathan Hyde, CEO, Yarra Valley Dairy: Please do. You’re very, very welcome.

[00:40:53] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Thank you very much.

[00:40:54] ImpexDocs: This has been the Global Trade Made Easy Podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you don’t miss an episode of innovative ideas from trade leaders across the globe. For even more insights on global trade, visit our website at impexdocs.com.au where we share resources for successful international trade management. Until next time, happy trading.

The post Global Trade Made Easy with Yarra Valley Dairy appeared first on ImpexDocs.

In this first episode, we welcome Dylan Skinns, General Manager of Sales & Marketing at Austral Fisheries. Austral Fisheries is one of the largest fishing organisations in Australia and the southern hemisphere.

Dylan reveals:

• Challenges the business has faced during the pandemic and post-pandemic
• How Austral Fisheries are overcoming bottlenecks with freight and logistics
• Strategies to better meet demand in a global economy
• How Austral manage significant price increases
• Capitalizing on free trade agreements to remain competitive in the marketplace
• The 3 key areas that Austral Fisheries is concentrating on over the next 12 months
• The growth strategy that focuses on a new emerging shopper
• How Austral Fisheries differentiated themselves in the market through branding and positioning
• Why understanding your market is critical for success

[00:00:00] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Hello, and welcome to the Global Trade Made Easy podcast. In this podcast, we speak to the global trade leaders, innovators and influencers from around the world and Australia. We talk about ideas that can disrupt your organisation, industry, or even careers. So let’s dig in.

In today’s show, we are going to speak to Dylan Skinns from Austral Fisheries. Austral fisheries are one of the largest fishing organisation in Australia and probably the Southern Hemisphere. So I would like to welcome Dylan.

Dylan, welcome to the show.

[00:00:35] Dylan Skinns, Austral Fisheries: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:36] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Dylan, tell us about Austral Fisheries, and what does it do as an organisation?

[00:00:41] Dylan Skinns, Austral Fisheries: Headquarters are based in Perth here in Western Australia.

And as you said, we’re the largest producers of wild-caught seafood in Australia. We have vessels that operate all around the country and we sell lots of our catch on the Australian domestic market, but we also export globally to around 15 countries, now. USA, China, and Hong Kong are probably the three biggest markets that we supply.

We’re famous for our Providence branded seafood, such as Glacier 51 Toothfish, the Skull Island Tiger Prawns and the Karumba Banana Prawns from in the north. And these can be found in some of the best Michelin star restaurants around the world.

[00:01:17] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: What is your role in Austral Fisheries? What do you do?

[00:01:21] Dylan Skinns, Austral Fisheries: I’ve been with Austral Fisheries for 20 years now. And I’m now the General Manager of Sales and Marketing for the business. I started as a deck hand with Austral back in 2002. And now I’m managing a sales portfolio of around 120 million dollars.

[00:01:37] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: How does your team look like, you being the General Manager Sales and Marketing? How do you operate?

[00:01:41] Dylan Skinns, Austral Fisheries: We’ve got quite a, a big footprint on the world stage of supplying seafood. We’ve only got a really tiny team. In sales and marketing we have myself and then four individual sales reps for different areas. And then in the export stocks, we have two or three people there running that side for us.

[00:01:59] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: We have been in uncertain conditions, pandemic and post pandemic. What has been your experience of last, let’s say 12, 24 months?

[00:02:07] Dylan Skinns, Austral Fisheries: Right now business is fun again. You can actually get out and meet customers and travel, but it’s still frustrating.

There’s a lot of business still to be done, but we’ve got a lot of logistical hurdles. Short supply, lack of manufacturing of important consumables to keep your business going.

People that’s been number one for us. Been the most important challenge in Australia, not just our business, but ensuring we have enough people to keep the business going and attracting new talent for the future.

Securing enough consumables like packaging and vessel parts to keep the business going. If your lead time for say packaging was two months previously, it’s now six months. So you’ve really got to stay on top of that.

Controlling the increasing costs at the moment. The price of diesel, for example, you know, that’s running amok. It’s gone through the roof for our vessels.

Freight. Freight in general has been pretty tough, export and local. We’ve had many challenges with the lack of containers, limited vessels, truck drivers with COVID, missing pallets. It really is a nightmare part of the business. And for example, right now in Mauritius, we’ve got around 20 million dollars’ worth of Glacier 51 Toothfish sitting on the Wharf just because we can’t get a vessel to call past Port Louis to pick it up. Container ships are emitting the port because they’re full or they’re required to go to a different part of the world. So that’s been really tough for us.

They’re some of the challenges that we’ve been faced with.

[00:03:25] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: How are you managing the situation?

[00:03:27] Dylan Skinns, Austral Fisheries: Freight and logistics area has been the real bottleneck.

So we’re offering as much support as we can into that area. Talking to others out there, if your budget allows, perhaps add an extra person into that area. Add some extra horsepower there to ensure your business can keep going along. As I said, it’s been a real bottleneck.

I know we’ve got a really small team that’s under the pump every day, getting product on ships and trucks and punching out the documentation that’s required.

We’re splitting up our team a little bit, over time, because we work globally. We’ve got a lot of emails coming in 24/7. So you can’t just have your people in for that eight hours a day. We split up our team a little bit just to stay on top of emails there.

The other thing that we’re doing is the significant increase in costs. We’re making sure that our team are retaining and rechecking quotes on freight and logistics all the time. We’re finding major differences between all the different service providers. Definitely have to keep on top of that. The prices are acceptable one week, but next week they’re not so palatable. So really stay on top of that. That’s really about it.

[00:04:25] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: I understand you are now in 15 countries. In this last, let’s say a couple of years, did you have to find new markets or how did you go about revenue side of things?

[00:04:33] Dylan Skinns, Austral Fisheries: Tried to support the markets that have traditionally supported us over the years, not really go and look for new markets.

China was a big market for our product and during COVID we actually we lost a lot of supply there. But we did manage to divert a lot of our toothfish and prawns into the US.

So I sort of just pivot there. But luckily for Austral, our catch was pretty much split retail and food service. If your business was only supporting food service during COVID, that’s when it was a bit of a struggle and you had to pivot and try and find some retail sales. So we were lucky that we had some business in retail already, and we just pump the retailer a little bit more during COVID until the restaurant scene came back.

[00:05:12] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: My assumption at the moment is that because the freight is increasing for everybody, not just in Australia, would it mean that from a competitiveness perspective, would we be similar to other suppliers or other countries? Or how do you see that?

[00:05:26] Dylan Skinns, Austral Fisheries: Yeah, I think every country’s having the same freight issues. We’re capitalizing on the countries where we’ve got the free trade agreements in place as well. So that’s having a more positive impact on our sales, but yeah, definitely, I think everyone’s having issues with freight. Just finding containers to put your product in.

[00:05:42] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Looking at the future and even the present, what do you see seafood industry, the situation is, and how do you see the next few, couple of years?

[00:05:50] Dylan Skinns, Austral Fisheries: We’d like to have lots of growth, obviously, that would be nice, but I think the next 12 months will be just trying to keep things going best we can.

Controlling costs, getting product to our customers, and getting paid. Getting paid is a major priority.

Being in the wild capture sector, we cannot increase our catch to get more growth. We can only deal with what mother nature provides us each year. So it’s about operating smarter, not harder, and trying to maximize those returns.

But in the last couple of years during COVID we’ve seen two types of shoppers. Being that one that’s doing it tough, really watching their spending, buying cheap and affordable seafood where they can.

And then there’s another type of shopper that’s emerging. The one that’s really turning into that conscious sustainability shopper. One that seeks out the sustainability claims, plastic free recyclability, carbon neutral, animal ethics. They’re ultimately looking to make a difference with their purchase. Our strategy for growth over the next 12 months is marrying up our product offerings to consumers like this and aligning our sales with retailers and restaurants that value the value of our values. That’s our strategy for growth.

We’ve been working hard to eliminate plastic from our range of Packaging. We’ll make it a hundred percent recyclable. And our carbon neutral seafood also speaks to a growing area of demand, whilst looking after the planet.

[00:07:08] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: If I’m hearing you right, what your strategy is is premium market. Do you want to target the high end of the market, which is looking for sustainable premium product? As opposed to going after the cost conscious market segment. Would that be fair?

[00:07:21] Dylan Skinns, Austral Fisheries: Yeah, that’s right. Our products used to be commodity based and we probably didn’t know where they sort of fit and where they ended up.

About eight years ago, we made a conscious effort to try and brand all of our seafood with Providence and a real ocean to plate story. And that’s elevated the products onto that higher end niche markets around the world.

We like to think, you know, we’ve been told to look after this wild, last wild resource on the planet, so we take sustainability very seriously, and we believe that we are leaders in this space in terms of the production of that seafood and also the global distribution of that product.

So we basically have two pillars to our sustainability at Austral. First being, looking after the fish stock itself. So all of our catch, all of our wild catch, is independently certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council in London. That’s an independent certification, which basically certifies that we’re looking after the fish stocks and harvesting the product in a sustainable manner. In terms of Glacier 51 Toothfish, as an example, it means that we’re only taking less than 10% of the biomass each year. So we’re really only scratching the surface down there every year.

But in addition to looking after the fish stocks and the fisheries resource, we are, and we’re the first seafood company in the world, to become certified carbon neutral. So a hundred percent of our carbon emissions are offset by planting 200,000 Australian native trees here in Western Australia each year to offset our emissions.

[00:08:53] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: I’m quite keen to know, what is that story?

[00:08:56] Dylan Skinns, Austral Fisheries: Yeah, a good example, you know, for a long time, I used to just sell tiger prawns as a commodity. And you would offer that to a customer based in Hong Kong. And he would ask you for the price and I’d say, oh, it’s 20 US dollars a kilo.

And he’d say, I can buy tiger prawns from your competitor at $18 US. So naturally, I had to come down to that level to meet the market and sell the product.

And we thought, you know what? This product’s a fantastic product. It’s got a great backstory. It’s wild, it’s caught in an amazing location. It’s got a great ocean to plate story. We should be branding this Providence story in the bid to try and get this on some of the best markets in the world. And get out of that price market, get into that brand market where they want it because it sells well.

With the tiger prawns that we catch, we actually catch them off an island, a real island called Skull Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria. So we branded all of our tiger prawn catch Skull Island Tiger Prawns.

The effect of that doesn’t happen overnight. Branding products is a three to five year journey, but now that brand is on some of the best menus around the world and people phone up and ring just to buy the Skull Island Tiger Prawns. We’ve elevated ourselves out of that commodity space. When somebody phones us up now and they want to buy Skull Island Tiger Prawns for 30 US, we can say, well, ours are actually 35. Really we’re the only shop in town that’s got that product. So it really has elevated us out of that commodity space.

[00:10:15] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: That’s a brilliant story. Okay, well done. I mean, this is what the exporters around the world and Australia would like to, you know, find what can they do to have their own stories. So it’s a fantastic story and I’m glad that we talked about that.

[00:10:29] Dylan Skinns, Austral Fisheries: Yeah. Well, the first one was Glacier 51 Toothfish. So that was the first product that we branded by Providence and everything we learned off that was then we went, wow, there’s some real ingredients in there to brand the rest of our product.

So yeah, Glacier 51 was the first product and then obviously Skull Island came behind that. Then Karumba. And this year we’re about to launch a couple of new brands as well.

[00:10:50] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: I also picked up on something in the news. You are also going hybrid in terms of boats.

[00:10:55] Dylan Skinns, Austral Fisheries: A lot of our boats are quite old. Built in the seventies. Not a lot of new technology. But we’re slowly replacing those now with new vessel builds.

The latest of our toothfish vessels, the Cape Arkona, basically a hybrid. So almost like the Prius of a fishing vessel. So it’s got almost like a big Tesla battery bank on board. So when that vessel’s alongside, we can just completely run off battery power and save on using diesel fuel.

But the future is to try and not use diesel at all. It’s a very exciting space, not just for fishing vessels, but all types of maritime vessels. On the day that we cannot use diesel and operate these vessels with a diesel replacement, which is environmentally friendly, that’s going to be a game changer for food production. I think it’s the first of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, particularly in Australia. But in our Northern countries, I think they’re well advanced with that. Definitely diesel-electric vessels are quite common now with the new build. Aborting diesel altogether, that’s the future. And there’s a lot of projects underway at the moment, whether it’s fishing or shipping or just general maritime. There’s definitely a move towards that.

[00:11:57] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: How do you make your operations more efficient? Or what are the kind of improvements that you have done or you’re planning to do to lift the game?

[00:12:05] Dylan Skinns, Austral Fisheries: Reducing the amount of diesel that we use is definitely high on the list, but we work in wild capture fisheries. So we just can’t go and catch another thousand ton to increase our profits and margins.

We get what mother nature gives us or what the government has come up with and the scientists as a quota. So we only get a set amount of fish and prawns each year. So to increase your margins and profitability on that you really have to get smarter in the way you sell your product.

One through this Providence branding that we spoke about. Trying to get more money through that ocean to plate story. And secondly, really just controlling your costs. We spoke about that earlier.

More so than any other year, with the increases we’re getting this year, you’ve really got to have a team looking at that week to week to make sure that any increase you get in price from your branded products, that you’re not losing all that with the extra costs.

[00:12:52] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: So what sort of advice would you give to, let’s say, new seafood exporters, or even existing seafood exporters, your peers? You being one of the leading, or probably one of the largest, if not the largest, organisation in this industry.

[00:13:06] Dylan Skinns, Austral Fisheries: Post COVID, there’s been a lot of emails come in from different countries and different importers saying that they’re the biggest importer of XYZ seafoods.

So you’ve really got to be able to sift through all that, to work out who is actually the real deal in that particular country. So I would be getting a bit of a dialogue up with say a new customer there, having those zoom links and calls with them. But one of the best things we can do now, and if you feel comfortable with international travel, is get on a plane and get to your next trade show where you can do that face-to-face interaction again. I think we’ve all had enough of emails, WhatsApp, and LinkedIn and Instagram. It’s time to start being human again and visiting some of these potential clients.

Other areas of suggestion would be probably just to start small. If someone’s saying they can take three 40-footers of a particular product, take that with a grain of salt. Maybe start off with a small air shipment or a smaller light container. Always ask for at least a 30% deposit with any new business. Don’t ship anything off without any sort of deposit. Make sure you’ve got that covered, particularly with a new customer.

But depending on what sort of product it is, understanding those markets. Like in seafood, we know that US and Asia are big for us. Really focusing on the areas that are big on your particular product.

[00:14:16] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Excellent. Thank you. That’s really good advice. Thinking of the new countries and then you did mention about the free trade agreements. Australia is about to sign a free trade agreement with India. I’m not sure what’s your view about that market?

[00:14:29] Dylan Skinns, Austral Fisheries: India are definitely on our radar and the free trade agreement there between the two countries will help.

For the last 20 years we’ve exported to countries outside of India, but India is a sleeping giant for me. I think a massive population, lots of cities, emerging hotel business. High-end hotel business. And with our products, we started at the start of the show there. They’re very high-end and niche, but we think there’s hotel groups and restaurant chains in India that would definitely benefit from these ocean-to-plate stories that we’ve got. We’ve just started doing some business in India this year. So our first container, sea freight container, of Glacier 51 Toothfish will be going to India next month, actually. That tells you that that market is starting to kick off. And once that FTA comes into place, I think we’ll see more and more business.

[00:15:15] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: I wish you all the best for the next period of time. We will see you when we are in Perth next time. Thanks for being on the show, and it was a fantastic conversation. So thanks a lot.

[00:15:25] Dylan Skinns, Austral Fisheries: Hopefully we provided some insights.

[00:15:27] Tejas Oza, ImpexDocs: Absolutely. I’m sure the exporters in the industry and others will benefit from this conversation. Thank you very much.

Dylan Skinns is General Manager Sales & Marketing of Austral Fisheries, Australia’s leading integrated commercial fishing company. Dylan has a wealth of experience in the seafood industry and has played a key role in developing Austral Fisheries’ commercial operations and driving growth in key markets. With a focus on delivering high-quality, sustainable seafood, Dylan is committed to Austral Fisheries being the most trusted and respected supplier of seafood. To learn more about Austral Fisheries, visit https://www.australfisheries.com.au/

The post Global Trade Made Easy with Austral Fisheries appeared first on ImpexDocs.