It's conference season for Orrani Consulting

Agribusiness in Australia

During January, Richard Field spoke at an agribusiness meeting in Perth, Australia, discussing potential opportunities in Asian markets for the state's dairy and meat exporters. Local processors face some unique challenges and scale is a fundamental problem for the dairy businesses.

Yet, as Wahaha's visit last year indicated, Western Australia does offer some clear strategic advantages in dairying, not least the fact that around 12,500 dairy heifers are available for potential herd locally each year after allowing for herd replacements. 

The UK's red meat and dairy sectors

In February, Annette Brune attended the AHDB Outlook 2013 conference in London. This event focused on the economic challenges for the UK red meat and dairy sectors in the short and medium term – given that this conference coincided with the height of the horse meat scandal here in the UK, the atmosphere was certainly tense! In the dairy breakout session, the key focus was on the global dairy market outlook and what this means for the UK dairy industry, given the challenges it faces.

Emerging dairy markets

In March, Annette spoke at a Dairy Export Summit organised by DEFRA / UKTI during the IFE trade show in London. This invitation-only event brought together key stakeholders in the UK dairy industry, discussing how the UK dairy sector can take advantage of the growing demand in developing dairy markets, in particular Asia and the Middle East, and what structural challenges the UK dairy industry faces going forward.

Annette spoke about the commercial services available to new or would-be exporters and again highlighted the case for exporting - a copy of her presentation is available here. 

Chinese dairy market

In April, Richard gave a presentation on the Chinese dairy market at the ADPI annual conference in Chicago. This year proved a particularly strong event with increased focus on export development as the US dairy industry becomes more active internationally and widens its product range for international markets. Download a copy of Richard's presentation here. 

Seafood sustainability

In April, Annette and our seafood consultant Nigel Peacock attended the annual European Seafood Exhibition (ESE) in Brussels. For our work in the fisheries and aquaculture sectors, this is one event not to be missed. As always, participants included seafood industry stakeholders from across the globe. It was noticeable that sustainability in seafood was a particularly strong theme this year. 

Annual DIN conference

In May, both Richard and Annette attended the annual Dairy Industry Newsletter (DIN) conference in London. The subject of this year's event was, 'What happens when EU Quotas Go?'. The event attracted a large and international audience with very interesting presentations from representatives of the likes of Glanbia, Arla, Müller Wiseman, Teagasc, Sodiaal, MIV, CNIEL and the Eurpean Commission.

There were differing opinions on the level of milk output increases post-2015, however, the general consensus was that volumes will increase - and faster than EU demand. The large EU processors are definitely preparing for this scenario with significant investments in processing capacity. 

What's next?

Looking forward, on 25 June, Annette will give a presentation at the International Conference for Drying and Separation Techniques for Milk and Whey (Internationale Konferenz Trenn + Trocknungstechniken für Milch und Molke) in Kempten, Germany. This event brings together participants in the German industry - while the main focus of the conference is on scientific / technological developments, the topic of export market development are an important issue for manufacturers of dry dairy ingredients.

Annette has been asked to give a presentation on the future dairy market trends and demand patterns in Asia, North Africa and Latin America, with a particular focus on China. Meanwhile, on the same day, Richard will be at a US-China roundtable conference in Shanghai, presenting work on the Chinese Government's moves to enhance the country's approach to food safety, with particular focus on the local dairy sector.

Busy times ahead!