WOOLWORTHS Group board member Holly Kramer will be the keynote speaker at Meat & Livestock Australia’s major annual Updates 2023 event being staged next month in Bendigo, Victoria.
The day includes briefings from senior MLA personnel on international and domestic red meat markets, market access and R&D progress, in addition to the industry service delivery company’s annual general meeting.
To be held at Bendigo Showgrounds on Thursday, 23 November, MLA Updates will also feature displays and demonstrations bringing farmers – and everyone along the red meat supply chain – up to speed on MLA’s investments in research, development and marketing.
Registrations are now open for producers to attend. The gathering is free for MLA stakeholders.
This year’s theme centres around ‘Sustainability from paddock to plate’, with a focus throughout the day on solutions and technology that embrace sustainability and set producers up for success.
Holly Kramer
Ms Kramer will address the event with a discussion about the increasing interest of corporates in sustainability throughout the supply chain, not only here in Australia, but also in major export markets for Australian red meat.
She has sat on the Woolworths board since 2016, chairing the board’s sustainability committee, and also sits as a director on the boards of ANZ Bank, Fonterra Group, and NBryo, an unlisted agri-tech start up business based in Queensland. She is also a cattle producer in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales.
Questions from stakeholders in the audience will inevitably arise over Woolworths’ (and major competitor Coles) retail red meat pricing strategies, in a year when both lamb and beef cattle prices have plummeted by 50-60pc or more.
In a following panel session, Lambpro’s Tom Bull, Western Plains Beef’s Iain Bruce and MLA managing director Jason Strong will discuss practical solutions for producers to be successful through embracing sustainability.
Tom Bull addressing this year’s ICMJ conference in Wagga
MLA Updates 2023 will also include plenary sessions throughout the day, featuring a presentation from Jason Strong along with updates from MLA marketing and insights team members, Meat Standards Australia, and presentations from MLA’s Corporate Chef and Retail and Corporate Butcher.
There will also be a range of showcases and livestock practical demonstrations from MLA’s Research & Development, Adoption, Marketing, and Integrity Systems Company teams.
Agriculture Victoria and peak industry councils will also be participating in the showcase and presentations to provide information to participants on the range of services available to industry stakeholders.
MLA’s annual General Meeting will also take place at this event from 3:30pm and MLA Updates will conclude with a sundowner event.
The deadline for MLA members to access full voting entitlements for the AGM has now passed.
To register to attend Updates 2023, click here.
Poacher lecturing gamekeeper!
Totally agree with Peter Dunns and Paul Franks comments.
Quoting Andrew Dunlop from an earlier related report in this forum, “It could not be said that the supermarkets have shown any leadership or corporate social responsibility in fighting inflation and supporting consumers with lower prices, in fact it would appear quite the opposite, that they have used their market power to increase their profits.”
The foregoing is at the very centre of red meat producer survival (as it has been for some time), but the conference distraction will be ‘sustainability’, as in covertly sustaining the pricing status quo. Under the camouflage of needing to do more and different to meet market demands, producers will be stretched further towards the desperation of accepting whatever prices are available, just to make ends meet.
Not to worry, there is going to be a ‘sundowner’ event. How good is that?
Thats a great quote Peter, “It could not be said that the supermarkets have shown any leadership or corporate social responsibility in fighting inflation and supporting consumers with lower prices, in fact it would appear quite the opposite, that they have used their market power to increase their profits.”
The credit goes to you Andrew.
Cattle prices at below cost of production and as usual MLA are oblivious to it and they keep banging this sustainability/net zero drum very few are interested in.
They have turned into something akin to a government bureaucracy. Lucky like a government bureaucracy, their income is guaranteed, unlike the people they are supposed to represent.
Well said Paul Franks. Consider the following an endorsement.
The MLA cow has strayed
It’s in the long paddock now
But even if it had stayed
It was becoming a troublesome cow.
It had started breaking through fences
Because it thought the grass was greener
Now it runs with a mob of wild cattle
Which bellow that the air must be cleaner.
Will it ever come back through the fence
To the paddock from whence it came
To recognise it’s role in the industry
And become a farm asset again?
Careful, Peter – your novel literary efforts could see us bombarded by every aspiring bush poet across Australia. Editor