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Welcome to Humans of Agriculture. This podcast series is dedicated to discovering more about our food system, from the people involved in it.
Along the journey we'll be meeting people from all walks of life from Australia and from afar. Join us as we find out how our communities and our culture shape what we eat, and ultimately who we are.
More people, More often, Identifying with Agriculture
Oli Le Lievre 0:01
Sarah stevia. Welcome to the humans of agriculture podcast. I've got it on good intelligence that you are a bit of an avid listener, first time, story share. I think our audiences come with us. And we've actually just ticked over four years of the podcast 238 Plus, I saw
Speaker 1 0:17
that listen to you and really having that chat. Yeah, that's great. Congratulations.
Oli Le Lievre 0:21
Thank you know that well, I feel like the lucky one, because I really just bring people on to chat about things that I'm interested in and looking to learn off. And I think others will probably benefit from it as well. And I think your background, but when Millie first spoke to you, she said, I'm really excited for this podcast series. So interesting. It could go here, there and everywhere. And I think looking at your CV, we've got a chemical engineer studied at Oxford has an MBA worked for Syngenta and Switzerland came home work for Rabobank, another friend of our show, which we'll share a little bit more on in the next few weeks. And then coming back into the family business and what that looked like coming back maybe with intent, but also with eyes wide open of what is happening out there not and when we say the world, we literally mean the world, big consumer markets. You running an egg business as he kind of touched on, but can you tell us a little bit about where are you joining us from an if we were sitting in your shoes, what would we be seeing today?
Speaker 1 1:16
Super cool question and not feeling any pressure whatsoever. Great, thanks. Excellent. Well, I am sitting, where are we We're on the Ellen River, which is the base of the Barrington tops, we're about an hour and a half north of Newcastle, 40 minutes from Dungog that sort of might give a few people a bit of a feel of where we are, I am actually sitting in a new building we've just built and we might touch on that a little bit later. But that's going to be part of an agritourism venture, which is sort of next bit of diversification. And the view I'm getting aside from you on screen, Ollie, obviously, is extraordinary, like straight over the top of the laptop, I'm looking out at the pinnacle, which we run all our cattle, chickens. And look, it's a pretty stunning view. And I'm hoping others will enjoy it when we open the venue, you
Oli Le Lievre 2:09
might have to just send us a photo of it. So we have an idea of what we're missing out on from here in sunny Geelong.
Speaker 1 2:14
I tried sitting out there and I couldn't the reflection was extraordinary. So I was like, yeah, no need to insert. No,
Oli Le Lievre 2:19
thank you for doing that for now, a podcast you've got which is one of your favourites how I built this with Guy Raz. He talks to a whole bunch of different entrepreneurs and people like that. What is it about guy's podcasts that you like,
Speaker 1 2:33
I love it. I'm one of our neighbours up here actually put me on to it. And I don't know, I think he's telling stories of people that, well, let's take an example, Ben and Jerry's great ice cream who doesn't love Ben and Jerry's, but how they started was so small and just I suppose it might be keeps it real for those that might be looking to scale and just think this mountain is too huge. But when you listen to these stories of these founders, you're like, Oh, my God, actually, they were going through all the ups and downs that you that you hear other small businesses go through and those that choose, choose to do that and want to scale etc, the stumbles they have, but they're real people, they make mistakes. They're not foolproof. And I think guy, he's a great engineer, great listener, but is able to dig deep enough that I think we get to the real stories of fake Well, I mean, it's very easy to put on a bit of a superficial show, but digs deep enough keeps it interesting. And for me, I'm always scrolling through trying to find the food, sort of case studies, etc. And I think for me, I just love this, I'm going to sound a bit wacky, I just love excellent businesses like that. They're really cool to be whether it be the business model. Usually this is what their products are great. But for me, it's always been about the skill set, or the things you learn are always transferable to other industries. So it doesn't matter if you're listening to an automotive case study, a medicinal case study or a food day study. There's always nuggets of gold that you can pull out, either apply to your own business or the industry you're in at least
Oli Le Lievre 4:02
100% agree. And I think I find that I was almost different types of podcasts. And I'm thinking like, how could this apply? Or even going down the street looking at a billboard or something like that and be like, how's the way they've done that applicable to what we do? And I think that's the interesting thing about business. I want to pick you up on why would you say it's a little bit wanker, why have you undersold it that?
Speaker 1 4:23
Oh, no, I just feel like I got myself in the category of serious data nerd or serious business model nerd and things like that. I mean, even like, I sit in a cafe This is gonna make you sound Yeah, really embarrassing. Anyway, I see. So early on in the podcast, great. I see you in a cafe and I'm sitting there counting how many coffees are being turned over in a one minute period, how many staff you've got there like wandering the floor or better, still not doing anything, just sort of counting and I see all that as waste in the sense of continuous in provement and lead not in the sense of food waste. And I just looked like, Okay, how could How could this be improved? Or what would I do differently? Or what could I take away from this business? And yet, so that's probably why I feel like it was between two European embarrassing. I should probably be enjoying the coffee from now.
Oli Le Lievre 5:14
Now I'll embarrass. I'll embarrass myself here, because we've got this amazing business here in DeLong. It's called bean squares. It's all locally owned as drive thru coffee, the guy who set it up, he might own, probably undersell it here, like six or seven of these different drive throughs. And I'll sit there and as I say, go in an order, or you see that there's six or seven cars before you only think, okay, if every car is ordering one coffee, it's about $5 $25.50 per car. If both cars are buying two coffees or every second cars buying two coffees, all of a sudden, like his wages are paid for the cars that are sitting in the drive thru right now. And it's like,
Speaker 1 5:49
I love it. It's great, but I don't I have no clue where that's come from. It's just I don't know, it's not like my parents. I don't think my parents were that way inclined. And dad may have babies was engineer based, like data driven as well. But yeah, I don't know. It's cool. That can't help it. So
Oli Le Lievre 6:04
why farming for you. Tell me a little bit about more about your family. And like where you call home now where you grew up? And how have you ended up back in the industry? Yeah,
Speaker 1 6:12
absolutely. So I grew up sort of between here on The Ellen River at a place called Eccleston. And Maitland. So I think for 40 years ago, my parents were probably quite progressive, because I think what I'm about to describe was probably normal now and not back then where dad would be dairy farming for most of the week, and then share farmer they might switch on the weekend and dad would come down to Maitland where I was because school was closer there. And then he'd also act like the chauffeur driving. It's my brother and I have left right and centre to sports constantly. So massive cane sports person. And then I think, yeah, a lot of weekends and a lot of holidays up here at the farm. And then I suppose after that school led to chemical engineering, I love to maths, and which is I think, no surprise after the beginning of this conversation, maths and sciences. And I think back then you were choosing it from a two or three sentence paragraph in the USF guide. And that was like chemical engineering, I wouldn't have had a clue what jobs would come from that. But I thought Yeah, I can do math and chemistry. That's let's have a crack at this. So I was at Sydney Uni, I did a combined chemical engineering and commerce degree and went to women's college, which is another story in itself absolute like that just opened my eyes. I mean, I suppose the thing there is the people you hang around with are really gonna lift you up, open your eyes to all these opportunities out there. So let's chat
Oli Le Lievre 7:38
about that. Because I'm interested going, well, let's just grab this one run with it. Moving from Maitland, like, only a couple hours north of Sydney, but then moving into literally the heart and soul of Sydney just there in Darlinghurst, or wherever the campus is, what was that like? And tell me more about that experience with women's college? Look,
Speaker 1 7:57
I think college was a great eye opener, an introduction, mostly because I think I was the only person from high school that went to women's college, which was absolutely fabulous, all of a sudden, you become anonymous again, and you can if you wanted to, you could recreate yourself. And I love that both at Union College. And for those I mean, those that might not know what college is college in Australia is basically where you are, where you live, versus universities where you go and do your academic work. But college also had all the pastoral care around it. So you're being fed, you're being mentored. And I think I was really enough, lucky enough that the principal at the time there was Quentin Bryce. So I went through, she was there the whole time through my freshman year to my fourth year. And I suppose for me, I was able to work quite closely with Miss Bryce. We definitely got the Miss Bryce or cuvee, or your excellency, or whatever you'd like to call Miss for us. Now, but she I was senior student in my fourth year. So it was just fabulous to get an insight into how she operated as a human being, which was just gonna call itself and to take on a leadership role within the college, but at the same time, attend uni and then do your work placements and things like that, which then obviously started to open things up to what chemical engineering might look like.
Oli Le Lievre 9:18
And did you find like, if you think now in terms of some of the ways you think about business, or communicating or anything like that, are there moments where Quentin QB was communicating that you kind of refer back to how she operated?
Speaker 1 9:31
She had a couple of who has a couple of great sayings. I think one of them is you can have it all, but just not all at once. And for me, that has resonated a lot possibly mostly in the last few years. I have a two year old and having a two year old like I'm in a solo parent, so decided to do that by myself, but that's another rabbit hole. But having a two year old whilst running a farming business Wow, it's insane is like I think I was a little naive to do that. And I think you sort of constantly go back to all that constantly. But I do go back to those words like by printerland. I saw her last year and sort of repeated that back to her. And she's like, Yeah, Sarah, I'll give you a couple of years. And then it's, you know, straight into it. And she's totally right, like, I feel now is I'm only getting some clarity in the last month or so. About, like, getting my I'm just gonna say like getting my brain back. Like, I'm impressed so far that I've been able to construct some sentences for you early. So lacking sleep. lacking sleep is a big thing. And I found it extraordinarily hard. The last two years, but she was right. And I think I'm getting a bit of clarity now as to what's next for the business. But it's certainly felt like I've been in survival mode the last 18 months, two years.
Oli Le Lievre 10:48
I'd love to ask you some questions about the family. If you're happy to you can also tell me? No, thank you.
Unknown Speaker 10:53
Yeah, go for it.
Oli Le Lievre 10:56
And I love that quote, I reckon someone's get well, I've definitely heard it several times before, but I reckon it was someone on the podcast, and I believe it was a female, and I'm pretty damn sure they probably have ties back into Sydney Uni as well, whoever that might be. But like the decision to solo parent and go down that pathway, did you have to consciously decide that? Okay, right now, family is the path that I want to go down. And so in that sense business might have to sit in on the sidelines?
Speaker 1 11:24
I think, I wish I'd had that clear. I thought about it, because then that probably would have managed my expectations a little bit, it would have been like, this is good business can tread water, and can we've set it up so that I think Nuffield wouldn't being away from my Nuffield Scholarship help with that, too, because that set me up to work on the business rather than in the business the whole time. So like, there were a lot of pivots that had to happen during going through things like IVF. And and having having Grace mother to one. But yeah, it was a deliberate thought it was probably quite typical five or six years ago, it was like, Okay, I'm back home, I don't think do I really do I want to do this, and what does that look like? And it's certainly impacted the business. I mean, that's, that's a no brainer, mostly because I think the the role I'm doing or the business I'm running is so hands on as in, out in the paddock, things like that. So from a physical perspective, for a little while, I was unable to be out in the paddock, which for a control free such as myself. There was different it was big, it was like I was I think it was in the tractor moving Chicken Caravan as part of the existence until I was about seven or eight months pregnant. And then it was just all too hard to fit behind the steering wheel. And that was okay, because that was a gradual line down to someone else taking over over that gig. And look, there's lots of that sort of stuff. But a grace actually comes with me on to most things that I do out in the paddock. And look hasn't always is the been the sort of brace on the front with grace, sort of if I'm fixing a pump or something like that it was perfect when she couldn't move, but then all of a sudden she started walking. So I'm like, Okay, we need to navigate this a little bit differently. So we like I use, I think the government calls it an in home care programme, because I'm quite a distance. Well, it would be 24 hours to put grace in daycare, sort of a round trip, like they aren't back there and back twice a day, sort of. It'll probably it probably three to three and a half if you Yeah, but so that takes a chunk out of your day. But I think I'm not sure which government sort of piloted the programme within homecare. But that has been fabulous for me, it has allowed me to sort of step out and do that certain times of the day. But reality is running a chicken business, a lot of stuff happens at nighttime. So yeah, there's been those sort of constraints, I'd say, but you just do things differently. I think the last four or five years have been for example, we've spent so much like hundreds of 1000s on fencing to go from 20 Odd paddocks in our 1500 acre property to over 65 Mostly so that I can as an individual, while myself move cattle very easily, etc. So that's just been advantageous. Now there's nothing manual or heavy or whatever involved with that. And Grace could be with me in the side by side. But the positive of it, I mean, the positives are no brainer, she I think you start your day, if you're talking about it from a business perspective, all of a sudden, you become much more organised and much better planned. I realised how off the cuff and how spur of the moment I was a lot with what I was doing during the day. And I feel like I was often must have been fighting fires and it was found Well, that's not the best way to run a business. And that wouldn't have been how I would have operated in the corporate world yet. I was I think I'd slipped into into that. So now planning out the week to a certain degree which will involve a level of childcare or involve a little more much more logistics has actually been really beneficial from a business perspective. I mean, there's also massive pros just having a little one running around and just being part of your life. I mean, that's super exciting. And yeah, don't don't get on that record. Because, yeah, that's kind of cool.
Oli Le Lievre 15:04
And drags you away from the business a little bit too, because Oh, so beneficial.
Speaker 1 15:09
Yeah, exactly. I mean, there's definitely that and Grace doesn't sleep. And so I think for the first 18 months, I was on 40 minute or, at most two hour sleep cycles for, you know, through the night. So, there's that element of, if you really dug a little deeper there, you'd be like, I don't know if I was making great decisions. So I was super handy to be the business to be able to run. It was one reflection that was probably taking me a little longer to make good decisions. Yeah.
Oli Le Lievre 15:36
So let's go back to working at bhp, huge, big business in the chemical engineering space. What maybe what were those experiences like and and do you still find yourself drawing on things today that you picked up when you stepped into those initial roles straight out of university? Absolutely.
Speaker 1 15:56
A loved my time at bhp. Actually, to be honest, I feel really lucky. All the corporate roles I've had, have all ended on really great terms sort of door's always open sort of conversations. And I think the philosophy has always been, just keep adding to the toolkit, like whichever role you take, make sure you're learning something new. And with bhp that went a lot. Even in the first week, I think I learnt about 50 new swear words just from I was on a mine site, I was in the middle of it was over in NWA. And it was pretty cool. So I was in Bunbury, which was a fabulous, but if you're gonna be on a mountainside to be living pretty much like in a coastal town, and only travelling half an hour, 40 minutes to work that was kind of cool. Especially as a young person, there was a great bunch of chemical engineers and sort of people under the age of 30 there as well making Bunbury your home. But actually came back from London I was also doing I was working for a consulting firm in London. And I'd done my thesis with bhp back in Newcastle in 2003, I think. And they rang out of the blue that my old boss from from Newcastle and said, Hey, there's a couple of gigs going on in Townsville, one in Bunbury that we think you might be interested in. And so I had a look, then they were called Lean Six Sigma Black Belt rolls. And I had no clue what that meant. Research that a little and thought, this is something I'd be super into. And yeah, I came back for the interviews. And my time at bhp was a couple of years of doing continuous improvement projects or looking at processes on that particular mindset. And I think a lot of people think when you think about process improvement or continuous improvement, you're always looking for cost reductions. And look, I think the takeaway for me was this is not, it wasn't about removing people from the process by any means it was actually working with the teams that are doing this work every day, to find better ways of doing it. And mostly driven by their suggestions of improvement that remove waste from the process. So stop doing things that you don't need to do, let's create an environment where you don't have to rework the like, there's so many, so many elements to learning to be will have a culture of lean or continuous improvement. And bhp was certainly well on the way when I was there and absolutely loved it.
Oli Le Lievre 18:14
I think that's one of the things with big businesses isn't that you like they have the ability to invest in programmes and things like that the other will get, keep giving bhp a plug here, because the other thing that I absolutely love that they do, and it's the Instagram channel inside underscore bhp, because I look at it a lot. But it's quite cool for what is such a big behemoth of a corporate, it's actually just all their everyday people doing things. And from someone who's driving the dump truck to someone else who's an engineer or something to then the bloke who's in the office talking about, of course, I can make the horn on the dump truck door, honk from 1000 kilometres away. And the innovation and what sits behind these businesses is actually just amazing. I think it'd be fascinating to be inside it.
Speaker 1 19:01
And they invest in their people to your point, they have the resources or set aside the resources or prioritise it to invest in people and as an employee, I mean, you love that, that the kids can actually use those skills straightaway. To help the business. I just found that fabulous. Like, I've used the lean mean that I get my kicks out of that continuous improvement, stuff like that. It's data driven, but it's also from a culture of change. Also just focusing the main driving that's focused on the customer, whether that's an internal customer or external, but again, transferable across every industry I've been in
Oli Le Lievre 19:35
since then, what was the reason to leave there and go go back to study?
Speaker 1 19:39
I think I'd always had ambitions to do some further study. There was not a reason necessarily to leave bhp. It was just, I wanted to do some study. I think it was about 28 at the time, and I think I thought let's go and do it. And I was actually that's because I went to Oxford. I think the average age at Oxford for doing your MBA is a little bit old. rather than some of the US courses, so I already felt like I was going to want to be the oldies in this course. So I just thought, why not? Why not now? And yeah, so and BHP were very generous. I mean, they would have happily paid for the MBA. But I think for me from an ethical perspective, I wasn't confident I was going to return to react to the mining industry. When I came back, I didn't know I didn't have a clue. I didn't know what I was gonna do. So it was I really wanted to do it myself and ended up lucky enough to get a scholarship. So yeah, that was very helpful.
Oli Le Lievre 20:32
If you had your time again, would you have taken that that funding and then at a different way or not?
Speaker 1 20:37
Oh, I don't think so. I think the path since then, has been one that's led me, led me back to here and knowing that I always wanted to get back to the farm wasn't sure when, again, it's always you sort of taking the opportunities as they arise. And I think I feel very comfortable having put yourself through it, or sort of, in your own stripes, got it that way. But look, if someone's gonna offer you the opportunity to go and study at these institutions jump at it. Absolutely.
Oli Le Lievre 21:02
Did you find the MBA use but like, because I guess I look at it. And I think, well, one, I don't know if I've got any capacity to take on further hex debt. That's a rant for another time. But looking at it, do you think if you were to go back into it now, would you do an MBA? Or would you look at other short courses of performs? What did you get out of it?
Speaker 1 21:20
Really good question. I think I started the MBA, then the GFC hit. So I think a lot of people at the time in the NBA were very nervous, because all of a sudden, people across the globe were being made redundant. And there was no way they were going to employ some 25 to 35 year old that had no experience in an industry, because most people historically would use an MBA, well, in my experience, I would have used that MBA to what I call it triple jump sort of switch from industry type of role, and maybe even country. That's historically what used to happen. I think I still would have done the NBA and the academic side. Absolutely. It was great. But to your point, I think you could get all of that academic piece from shorter, more intense courses. But I think the value for me and possibly the reason I wanted to go in the first place was the people you meet, oh my god, like he turned up, it was just extraordinary. I mean, I was I wanted to grow and play cricket over there. And yes, I got to do that. But also got to meet these people that were just doing such extraordinary things, whether they be again, I stayed at, I was living in college there as I rode for college, but the people in the NBA at UCLA had at least sort of anywhere from four to 10 years work experience under their belt, in industries half the time in roles that you just never heard of. I think the biggest stumbling block for me coming out of as an undergraduate, you just didn't know what you could do, like what was possible. So any opportunity to see or hear about roles is pretty valuable.
Oli Le Lievre 22:57
And coming from that background of people from all kinds of walks of life from all around the world. Did agriculture kind of pop up in conversations as such? Or was it more that you really had to kind of search and try hard to go well, I know what my roots are, I know where I want to end up. So I'm going to look extra hard for where this could be applied and have opportunities through ag
Speaker 1 23:18
Yes. The second part of that years on I think it's it was actually became pretty hard for me in a later step when trying to find corporate agricultural roles that I can chat about that later but yeah, I think a lot of people again this I don't know if this case anymore I don't know if it's relevant anymore. A lot of people were looking to step into management consulting or investment banking. It's it was a complete stereotype. Yeah. 100% So I was completely going against the grain because I was looking for agri or food and agri mostly. I mean you still I did interviews for places like Shell and other organisations because you just you want interview practice as well. But you really want to know that when that duck job does come up, you want to be ready. So yeah, I ended up I think I got my role. I worked in work for Syngenta straight out of Oxford, but I got that role pretty early on before the NBA actually finished but that was because I really actually che someone there was wasn't a graduate role or anything like that. But I went looking for that role. But yes, you're right. I think it was very limited. I don't think many people were in there looking at agricultural roles after an MBA.
Oli Le Lievre 24:26
Because I just think about it now and I well yeah, all I can do is make assumptions but I would not be surprised if agriculture is still not part of the conversations but it's like you look at where the world's heading removed from the finance point of view but from a climate environment, food nutrition, sustainability all those things. Like if AG is not being case studies and front and centre in terms of opportunities, it's it's really on our industry to be like how do we get into those rooms? How do you create the case studies because it's all there.
Speaker 1 24:54
I think that's all I only found out or heard about. I didn't even know about Syngenta through a case study it was the golden right A case study and that was something we studied in, at Oxford, it caught in a subject called Managing inflammation in the bioeconomy. But it really, I think you're right. But I think some of the massive corporates like the likes of Cargill, etc, like those guys are doing their thing and having that you're having those discussions. So the meet and greet, it's a stereotype as everyone would imagine it to be like that the corporates of their choosing the wrong word. It's not the right word at all. It's a networking event. It's like this, there's no, there's not a lot of cash spin or anything like that. It's just you're in the room with people that you could potentially work for. Again, it's opening your eyes to what's available, but I just think it's changed so much in what's that that's 1515 years ago, if I really feel like it is like I'm old, really. It's,
Oli Le Lievre 25:49
I was just finishing high school.
Speaker 1 25:51
Great, thank you. It's just, it makes I really think it's changed. I think people now would be certainly seeking out roles they'd be I think employee years, are shaping roles more now to people, that to great people. They realise that talent is hard to find, if you get it, you need to shape the roll to the talent to keep it or to get those outcomes that you're chasing. Yeah,
Oli Le Lievre 26:16
no, definitely. What was it like working across here? Those big markets, lots of consumers are lots of money. Yeah,
Speaker 1 26:23
lots of all that more. Lots of language differences. I think, when I was in Switzerland, to start with, I felt a little bit isolated. Because you're the Ozzy they're there that only speaks English literally, I felt like the biggest bargain ever. Because everyone else spoke at least three languages. Like that's what it was like. And it was felt like oh, that we're going to split switch to English or Sarah, like, excellent. But it was great. I spent my time mostly working in a business like the business arm that was focused on food security. And that was mostly for smallholder farmers, so less than an acre or less than two acres. And what that might look like moving into the future, which was it was very cool. I wasn't in Switzerland for a long time. Because I think at that point, I think I actually came home, because my father was unwell. So I moved back to AWS for a little while. And then that's when I took up with the World Bank.
Oli Le Lievre 27:18
Amazing. So let's talk about coming home. You've literally been around the world, you've worked in huge, huge businesses. What were the opportunities? Why, like, initially, why did you want to come home?
Speaker 1 27:29
I know that I'm a homebody, it was always on the radar. And I think I was reflecting on this only recently, because I knew this interview was coming up. And I thought he might ask me that question. It was more around, I started to go, why? What do I want to do? And I think I knew I wanted to be part of a business that I would have a little bit more control over was a little bit more agile. And yes, it's lovely coming back to the farm. That's great. But I think what I was actually coming back to was a business that I could influence and I don't know, I think I think I'm still would have printed it could have been a ginger beer business. I think I was trying to go it wasn't the business wasn't the location. I think it's a bit of everything. But I definitely wanted to have a crack at running my own business. The
Oli Le Lievre 28:11
ginger beer business that was a legitimate you when you were coming home, you really wanted to bring an enterprise back. Is that right? Yeah,
Speaker 1 28:17
I think I feel like you've learned a lot and there was still so much more to learn, but it was like, is there an opportunity to use some skills especially around the process improvement piece and, and things like and that's probably why I ended up in pasteurised eggs, I could have quite easily I think steps back into dairy farming with the process piece like that would have been very attractive to me. Because a lot of those businesses I feel you can make a tweak and that incremental improvement and you can see the results of that or the change of that very quickly. The beef business which we still run here we run somewhere between 250 and 300 cows and their carbs but I felt that was a slower slower moving business if that's right and it's also obviously commodity driven whereas I wanted to start a business that I could have a strong control over the price of the product
Oli Le Lievre 29:05
Yeah, and eggs was a natural natural fit once you started to look a little bit deeper into where you were markets etc.
Speaker 1 29:11
I thought there were a few ginger beer when I was actually one I looked at I think a lot I don't I don't drink so I was like what really love ginger beer and was like Is it something I love the process piece again how you manufacture it I did my uni work experience with Carlton United Breweries in Broadway and Sydney went before it got turned into apartments and knocked down but loved it like my first gig was actually it has a beer taste tester. I could not believe it. They, they're like okay, so what we need you to do is taste all these different samples of beer, then pull samples from different parts of the line. And they dose it with tastes. That could mean you've got to be able to pick out whether the beer has gone off at certain parts of the manufacturing process. And I don't know why but somehow I was okay at that. And it just and then you basically spent the next three months working in that manufacturing plant which I just yeah, love. So hence, like the idea of ginger beer but ended up with eggs because of more about the demand I thought and the research I've done with potential customers.
Oli Le Lievre 30:12
And so the egg business, what it looked like when you first set it up established at what maybe and what were the ambitions for it back then it
Speaker 1 30:20
had to be a business that would complement the beef side of things. So we definitely and still doesn't impact the number of head of cattle were kilogrammes of beef that we produce. As I said before, it would be it was going to be great to be able to control the price of your product. But I think for me, it also needed to be if possible, some sort of predictable cash flow, and not severely influenced by external factors. So hence, with the eggs, for me, it was it was never going to be about producing eggs that were going to sit in a supermarket or a grocery store or something like that it was always going to be about direct to the consumer. It was like how do we choose that model. So that's how the subscription business came about.
Oli Le Lievre 30:57
Yeah, gotcha. And subscription log, as I was looking into it, like, bloody fascinating in the sense of trying to meet the customers where they are. But then, and this is my take on it. So if I'm correct, you use different cafes and local retailers as kind of your collection point an outlet, which then one gives customers somewhere which they're familiar with to go and collect it, but to it also creates this community where the the businesses that are stocking your products would become a whole lot more invested in supporting you, because there would be crossover benefits to say someone coming in and an ordering a coffee while they collect their dozen eggs, etc.
Speaker 1 31:32
Absolutely, that and that's the theory. And I'd say 95% of the time, that's, that's how it works you spot on people, it's almost like a gym membership, I suppose people sign up and $12 is subtracted from their credit card every every week, say on a Monday, the eggs theoretically are not laid to say Wednesday and Thursday. And the delivery takes place on the Friday because we also have the wholesale customers. And you're right, that person then comes in and picks their eggs up from the cafe that we've delivered to. And if they don't collect the eggs, so some people will realise they've reached peak egg and don't need any more eggs in their in their fridge this week. And they just leave them there for the week. And we'll pick those up, and we donate them straight to us harvest or our rescue kitchen. So that was always part of the business, the business needed to have some sort of social impact. So just as an underlying part of Operating Round, approximately 5% of our production always goes through to a rescue kitchen or also harvest.
Oli Le Lievre 32:31
And is there a feelgood aspect there for the customers so far is your customer and at peak egg, so I haven't haven't gone and collected them when I go back in the next week? Or do I get like a message being like, pay? Oh, thanks for your subscription this week, we've donated your eggs, or did I get anything like that like because now
Speaker 1 32:49
they'll know that they their eggs have gone. But we we don't necessarily know it was you only that didn't pick up your eggs because their name isn't on the acre, all I know is that there's three dozen eggs left at particularly a particular Cafe, and they go straight to the rescue kitchen. But they're very weird. So every time we get a new customer, I'll ring them and have this exact conversation with them mostly also to manage expectations. Because as you can imagine, it's a different type of customer behaviour, to pay for something in advance, turn up each week and pick up these eggs and then all of a sudden you've paid but my eggs aren't there because I'm actually here on the eighth day rather than the seventh day. And so you really want to manage that expectation that the your eggs aren't going to be there if you don't pick them up in that first seven days. I think there is a little bit of a feelgood factor I think it was a why not? Would you just do this anyway, as part of your business? Yeah, that was a no brainer for us to include that in the in the business model.
Speaker 2 33:43
And how's that benefited? loved one that sounds like a huge amount of work. But has it benefited you having that direct contact with your customers and to actually having the flow and impact that if someone isn't? Yeah, using the product that it's still going to a good use?
Speaker 1 33:57
I think it is it's a significant element, we've set it up. So the marketing or creative agency that helped me do the design for just been laid and also the like all the packaging, the website, everything. They were really critical in that when I've given them the brief around how do we do this predictable cash flow piece that I certainly can't claim credit for coming up with this with a subscription for eggs like that was a joint sort of it was like the brainstorming piece of it. And when people do this when it when people even be a part of this. There's a little bit of work involved. The platform that we use enables most of the technology behind the scenes to just take care of delivering lists, payment gateways, all that sort of stuff, I think where it becomes more intensive and what we're looking at at the moment is if if customers have the option to pause or stop for a while or things like that all of a sudden up it becomes very custom. And you need to have like focus on that. So it's we don't see pausing a lot. So it's probably something we're sort of looking at as to whether we want to continue to offer it there.
Oli Le Lievre 34:59
So how many customers do you guys have? Across? Is it mainly out in Newcastle?
Speaker 1 35:03
Yeah, so we produce around not brick, we only have about 1500 chickens. Now with the egg business, we reduce that a little bit after COVID. So there's a couple of 100 subscribers. So around 250,000 I think go out every week, just two subscribers, because you have people out there that go through three 4000 eggs and wait, it's not me. God, yeah, no. And during COVID cooking PAVS Yeah, absolutely drink COVID I think everyone was baking at home, because at times, we'd get subscribers saying, Can you add another 3000 to my order? And I was okay. Sure. What are you doing? Yeah, so that's probably 30 or 40% of our business. The other part is those cafes, that actor's collection points are often using kitchen eggs as well. So that's where the rest of the eggs will go. Interesting.
Oli Le Lievre 35:50
Is there. And so when I first heard about this idea, I was like, Wow, is that the potential? Call it HelloFresh. But that direct to consumer subscription food model? Is there an opportunity to for these different cafes to one be, as you say, users of the product, but actually a collection point. So the carrots, whatever bit of beef, things come into these cafes, like do you think there's scalability in this model?
Speaker 1 36:15
I think the scalability comes from increasing the number of Cafe points as opposed to Yes, there is an opportunity to increase the offering. Absolutely. But I think some of the problems when I say they're about It Works 95% of the time, I think, probably works 99% of time there, the hiccups we have is that a couple of collection points, for example, just getting too popular. There's too many subscribers and cafes as you would know, when you're there counting the coffees and looking at the full space and how much money they're making. They don't have the space to then put in a fridge for just being late necessarily. Unless they're doing the maths going. That's okay, all the subscribers that are coming in and then also buying coffee like that discussion. We're getting at that growing pain point with a few of our hubs actually, in having some quite robust discussions because the cafes don't clip the ticket they don't they're not taking like a percentage of the egg revenue. So we might need to revisit how that how that works in the future. But I do wonder if they started offering other products just to space, it's really just a space thing.
Oli Le Lievre 37:20
Ya know, my mind just goes a million miles an hour on that and going on is there like a franchisee model which comes in so it's like they do get to click the ticket but do you as the initial kind of customer point of contact, have your lead being the eggs but then be able to attack in other companies so then you get a percentage and then the cafe? Like
Speaker 1 37:41
yeah, and hunt people doing honey and bread come to us with that suggestion as well. I can totally see things like they know what I actually see and we were chatting with the creative guys yesterday is this sort of like a you know, when you drive you're in a rural tight town sometimes you see that the honesty box site type situation where people might buy some backyard eggs for five bucks and leave the money in the in the little container sort of thinking about is they're not really giving away too much here but you've got a space in the CBD that is like completely unmanned, but it has a cone so you've got subscribers or members in our case, probably more than subscribers that can have that code. They can go in there a bit in there. There's no human in there, but you've got your fridge with all your eggs and what we're looking at now is just been like pantry products. So that would be quiches curds, custards any big value added product. We've also got your bait like your breads, you've got your milk, whatever, in this space where people can buy scan and pay for. So it's something that we're certainly thinking about at the moment so that you can have those other offerings in the ones but it changes that customer behaviour like would we be able to swing our customers to now go to a different collection point where they probably like getting their coffee when they currently pick up their eggs. I don't know that's been some sort of pilot plan potential.
Oli Le Lievre 39:03
Yeah, have you seen that human was butcher shop which is exactly as you talk about? No,
Unknown Speaker 39:08
that sounds super cool.
Oli Le Lievre 39:09
I'll send you the details after this.
Speaker 1 39:11
Absolutely. Just it also reminds me of say vending machines or in the UK when you've got your vending machine like Finn found very beautiful cheeses in the UK. But you can buy the cheese you can buy the raw milk you can buy everything at the farm gate and there's no human there. It's just it's just that that bring that idea back he
Oli Le Lievre 39:28
brought in vending machines. I was in Japan at the start of this year. It's good plug there. And on all of that has been a big part of this year. Emilio love that because she's into me that I tell everyone I went to Japan and on holidays, but they have vending machines everywhere. And it's like there's got to be Yeah, like the it's not revolutionary stuff but like there was it was bizarre. You could press at the same vending machine and get a cold drink or you could get a hot like get an or you can get an iced coffee or you can get a coffee can which was actually warmed up or you could get a tin of corn on the tin corn was hot. Like it was amazing what was kind of at the one machine? And how could you need? Yeah, they do in
Speaker 1 40:07
the Netherlands as well. Like, it's part of what I was travelling during that research and I feel that it's the farmers some egg farmers were struggling with their, say their contract or felt like they could be making additional additional money or different different strike revenue stream. But they're so close like to Amsterdam, or wherever that might the farms were like kilometres away, rather than, you know, 60 kilometres. And they just had a vending machine at their barn door and working so well.
Speaker 2 40:33
Gonna go travel again, make it a work trip, not holidays. Let's talk about your Nuffield, you've done a great country, this era, your Nuffield topic was really around looking at how small businesses could potentially compete with the big guys. And what was their point of colour difference? Is that that right? Like not necessarily about economies of scale, becoming the biggest player but actually, how could you still be profitable you need by being Pursuing Excellence, which I love? Yeah,
Speaker 1 40:59
I think so. It was really about farming businesses that had that passion for excellence. And it was a complete deal with a pride moment from a book I was reading called Small Giants. Once it goes more giants companies, yeah, companies that choose to be great instead of big, great green. It's a super cool. It's my bow Burling companies that choose to be great instead of big, I think is the name onto it. Thank you. Yeah, it's just really cool. You just go actually, that's right. There's so many businesses out there that are just absolutely fabulous at what they do, and resist the urge to scale or multiply or whatever, and still are extraordinarily successful financially. And then whatever else they however, they measure success. So for me it was going and looking at farming businesses that haven't necessarily scaled or might have been before the point of scale, or just just really looking at what are these businesses doing differently to others. And so that that was what the Nuffield sort of travel was about. And yeah, it was so cool, because I think the problem with Nuffield is if there is a problem is you get so excited about what you see over there. And so, energised that all sudden, you come back and straightaway, you oh my god, I can do this, this and this. And you really have to restrain I think the people that have been around the Nuffield lock a few times have sort of like, look, take a breath, give it six or 12 months, before we do anything, because it is a bit of a risk from that perspective. But yeah, look, we, the main I think for me, the main findings were really around how these businesses interacted with their customers. I think they were from memory, there's, again, you're testing me five years ago. So I think the main findings were around, these businesses were really, really close and not geographically close, but close to their customers, they understood their customers, they at times were almost able to predict what their customers would want or need. They were when it was classifying that as a level of customer sort of intimacy, they would also choose their customers and choose who they didn't want as customers, they will really specific around that. And I think the other piece was they had this emotional connection, or their customers had an emotional connection with the product or business. And it was really cool. I don't know, did you? Do you want me to describe a couple of businesses or not?
Oli Le Lievre 43:11
Yeah, I would love to Yeah, because this is pretty well, what I'm trying to work through myself at the moment. So thank you,
Speaker 1 43:17
I think the and then you can at least this can be applied across again, any of the industries it's just that I happen to be visiting food and farm businesses. But you could take there was a turkey business called Kelly bronze run by a gentleman called Paul Kelly. I looked today on his website to actually just remind myself how much he was selling his turkeys for. This is at Christmas time in the UK. And they sell from anywhere between depending on weight from $150, Australia to 400 400 Australian dollars. And this is a six week turnaround time, the Christmas time. And Paul had done many things he realised how valuable sort of the emotional connection piece was. And he for example, had partnered with quite a few influencers. This is well before social media influencers but had partnered with the likes of Jamie Oliver, Nigella Gordon Ramsay, etc. To invest or validate the product click talk about why their product was so using words like Natural Born to be Wild like and at some wasn't marketing spin like you would go on the tour like Paul took me through from it like everything was done by hand whether it be the plucking, the waxing of the bird, etc, the genetics that were brought in from the US to the UK to change the colour of the light so that the burn different coloured feathers, etc. It was just really fascinating to see then when it got to the time of packaging and the product itself. It didn't just give people a turkey it would be here's your thermometer so that you don't overcook it. Because it was a slow food. There was a risk of using temperatures that you might use for a slightly different type of Turkey to cook. But here's all the equipment you need to have an absolutely perfect Christmas lunch. But Paul would go and spend time with these gases we'd sit around the table But with them while they were eating some turkey to like sort of more of an ethnographic study to be like, This is what the customer needs as opposed to sort of making the assumption about it. Sorry, I could get a grip on these other fascinating, sorry, it's just like because even like, there's a strawberry producer in the Netherlands, he's being pitched was zero, you need to be close to the customer, not just geographic, not geographically. But be in his world. His his value proposition was that we're flexible. A wholesale customer can bring me in the morning at 8am. By 11am, will have his strawberries packed in a certain way and delivered on Route being delivered, because he had a direct line to him. But you go and have a look at the strawberries. He realised that only 20% of his product was going to hit their criteria for say the Japanese market, the Japanese were willing to pay a 30% premium. If Marcus could guarantee that every one of the strawberries was between 13 and 15 grammes, every store of strawberry had been placed in the same position, that same angle in the panel, it had bubble wrap underneath. And the cream on the top was, will pay you more markets, if you're able to in the Japanese market, get rid of those dead leaves that you see in the bottom of a strawberry panic. So as a true farmer came up with a really basic solution, which was putting the pallets on a conveyor blowing some compressed air into the pan of the leaves just fly out onto the floor. And all of a sudden, there's a 30% premium on that product. With the remaining 80% of product potentially going to somewhere like the European market, again, he was removing waste from the process by picking the product and it was going straight into the box or packaging that would then go into the store, there was not double handling or anything. I mean, this is all sort of common sense. I certainly don't want to preach that it's but getting those processes in place and making sure the product is still good. By the time it reaches the customer is actually I think a lot harder than some people might think,
Oli Le Lievre 46:54
well, it's the it's the care, isn't it by going like how do you if you've got that relationship with your customer, you're more likely to care about well, yeah, is it likely to go sour or be bruised or something between now and two days time or not?
Speaker 1 47:09
I think that there's that and they just also, these guys have been doing it for so long that they realised and I think there's a great Harvard Business Review article that shows that you actually want to convert you want your customers to be emotionally connected, but you're trying to convert them from highly satisfied to actually connected. You don't want to spend your time this this three times more value doing that than trying to convert people that are unsatisfied dissatisfied. So if you're got thick enough skin, and you're happy to drop the unsatisfied to satisfied customers focus on those, those high end customers not they're not high end because of money. They're high. And because of the value they create, they recommend you they're an advocate for your product. They there's a level of forgiveness when things go wrong. Like there's yeah, there's so many things about why you would want to do that. Yeah.
Oli Le Lievre 47:55
So how do you then then take that level of stimulation, you get, as you said, kind of had to temper it and go going from this level of thinking up here, back down into the farm? How did you temper coming back in at a million miles an hour and making change, but also to keeping things on the horizon? And this is such a multi layered question, but keeping things on the horizon, but also have that stimulation around you to know that all let's go back to what we picked up in Nuffield, etc.
Speaker 1 48:21
Yeah, I yeah, as you can tell, I probably my rate of speaking gets a lot faster when I'm getting excited about what I'm ologies I think, all the time, especially when I was out travelling with Nuffield, you're in a bus with eight or nine other people, and it's the most interrogation you're going to get from your business model. So you've got to have a decently thick skin to be like, they're going to rip you to shreds in a good way. And you walk away going, Okay, what am I doing? What works, what doesn't. So by the time you get back to the farm, after the scholarship, I think you've had a lot of time to figure out which ideas you really want to put a lot more thought into. And you sort of start reflecting going, am I even Am I doing this in my business? Which of these are going to be? I don't necessarily think you can do it all? It's it's very much, especially as a lot of small businesses. And yeah, for me, it was a reflection of which bit Can I focus on now and sort of put in the plan for moving forward.
Oli Le Lievre 49:18
So where do you find that, that now, because going from the circles you've been in whether it was in corporate world into Nuffield, like now how many people do you have in your business back home?
Speaker 1 49:29
There's six of us here, it probably equates to about two and a half people full time. But we have a lot of like, we have dairy farmers up the road and people that run other small businesses that the for egg collecting, grading, packaging, etc, kind of fits well, school drop offs and things like that. So yeah, we've got about six.
Oli Le Lievre 49:45
And so then you've also got this consumer facing business as well as the farm isness. How do you find that stimulation and new ideas the getting out of that bubble of the day to day like where do you look for that? Definitely
Speaker 1 49:55
podcasts for sure. And thank God For podcasts because I love reading as well. And we've got a pile of books beside my bed. But that's where conferences like getting back together with the likes of the Nuffield, the Nuffield scholars, or even just putting some potential industry calls or conferences or field days. I'm also a research fellow for the Australian pharma Institute. So it's such a buzz being in a room, it's I just sit there going, I don't even know why I'm in here. But like, with people that are just doing super cool things, and you go, you guys are pretty cool. And, again, just talking about stuff that I don't, I don't think about day to day. So lifting you out of that is critical. And I think for me, I had to proactively do that. Like actually, yeah, look, those opportunities. Well,
Oli Le Lievre 50:42
several, maybe one or two other questions to finish on what's on the horizon for you, what's kind of that next thing that you're looking forward to that kind of driving you at the moment,
Speaker 1 50:52
I think we've, over the last probably 18 months, I think, I've been building a new venue on farm because I think 2019 was a really hard year with the drought, etc. And you started to realise that you were so impacted by external things that you had no control over. That was from the beef perspective, the eggs have been quite solid, but the new building is for an agritourism piece. And this, I'm hoping will do a few things, draw a different crowd here. Also leverage our subscriber business, I often talk about the stickiness that you want with your customers like, we want to give them more and more reasons for more and more value that they see in the relationship they have with us. So that if we have a tough patch, or if there's an inflection point where something goes wrong, it's an opportunity for them to be able to come closer to us and they don't, they won't leave. But also, with something like this, this will have a farm shopping, it will be a place where cooking classes, art classes, it will be a strategic planning day for corporates to come up here, spend the day on site, and then have a facilitated team day. But I think for me, it's just a way of also pushing yourself like to think about different things and to stretch yourself and challenge yourself again,
Oli Le Lievre 52:06
that's so exciting. You're gonna have, you're gonna go from looking at podcasts to having more stimulation than you need around you just with the different conversations and people that come into the space.
Unknown Speaker 52:15
And I say I love it.
Oli Le Lievre 52:19
Now one question, I did kind of go away for a little while. But with everything you've seen everything you've learned about agriculture, I love to think of talking to the the 10 students about what a career in agriculture can kind of afford to them. But if you look at what you've seen and experienced in and around agriculture, what would you say to people about where the industry is heading? And why should young people be looking at it as a career path?
Speaker 1 52:42
It's a really good question. I think I have quite a range in age of people that work here from a couple of 1819 year olds through to sort of 65 plus. And it's really interesting at morning tea, that's where I love it, where the conversations happen, and you just go out and diversity in this chat and each learning from each other. It's mostly an age thing, a generational thing. And I love seeing the 18 or 19 year olds push the buttons of the older generations, especially around carbon and climate change, to be honest, let's just be frank about it. And even just using they've been great storytellers, these 18 or 19 year olds about this is your these are your grandchildren, they're gonna be affected. But they've been able to influence this discussion where some people have switched off to that debate. And so that's what I've enjoyed about that multi generational workforce. But I think, in what I've said to all of our young guys, is it's still true for me is just to be keep adding to your toolkit. I think I've found it's been helpful for my career that I can have been able to switch industries. And that's purely been because of the skills that have been keen to pick up in whichever industry you've been in. And they're applicable everywhere. But you can bring those skills back to agriculture, or you can start in agriculture and take them somewhere else. I wouldn't look at agriculture as a limiting career choice for a long term career. It doesn't have you don't have to stay now you can start it you can leave it and then come back to it. You can start it and leave it whatever. But those skills are available now. I believe in organisations from all parts of the value chain. Couldn't
Oli Le Lievre 54:18
agree more.
Speaker 2 54:18
Now, Sara, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed our chat. We did have a little halftime or quarter time intermission. But now I really enjoy it. I think the business that you run is fascinating. I'm looking forward to learning more and more about it. But thank you for sharing it with me and with our audience.
Unknown Speaker 54:33
Thanks, only pleasure to be involved.
Oli Le Lievre 54:36
Well, that's it for another episode from us here at humans of agriculture. We hope you're enjoying these podcasts. And if you're not, let us know hit us up at Hello at humans of agriculture.com. Get in touch with any guest recommendations topics, or things you'd like us to talk and get curious about. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. Right subscribe, review it any feedback is absolute Be awesome and I really do welcome it. So look after yourselves. Stay safe. stay sane. I'll see you next time.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai