Business View Oceania | June 2022

53 54 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA VOLUME 4, ISSUE 6 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA VOLUME 4, ISSUE 6 AUSTRAL I AN MEAT INDUSTRY COUNC I L are based on the number of employees within a business and their membership category, to ensure fairness and equity remain a priority. AMIC speaks passionately on a number of issues facing the industry, including access to labour, animal welfare, food regulation, market access, biosecurity, shipping, logistics, and freight. Supporting this voice and making moves towards change are three councils: the National Processor Council, National Retail Council, and National Smallgoods Council. Each council features a number of Internal Reference Committees designed to focus on specific areas of improvement within their respective sector. Patrick Hutchinson is CEO of the team of 20 at AMIC. He begins, “Our organisation follows the custodians of Australian meat from the moment it leaves the farm gate to its final sale for consumption. That includes processors, wholesalers, manufacturers, retailers, and smallgoods. We conservatively estimate that we represent about 50,000 FTEs throughout the value chain. Our first meeting was back in the early 1900s, and we’ve operated under many different iterations since that time, but our core purpose has remained the same. Our current AMIC model was formed in 2003 with the blending of what were called the Australian Meat Council and National Meat Association. Rather than having one national body for domestic and the other for export, we decided to present a united front and a single voice for both areas of the industry.” AMIC defines their mission as, “To increase the profitability of our members through advocacy, innovation, and delivery of services,” and their vision as, “A profitable and sustainable Australian post farmgate red meat supply chain, valued by the wider community.” Values are clearly listed on the association’s website in accordance with their views on transparency: Integrity, Collaboration, Influence, Excellence, and Community. Mr. Hutchinson weighs in, “Our key commitments are to our membership services, lobbying and advocacy programs, issue management councils and committees, relationships with other industry bodies, and engagement events. We have a very broad footprint for a broad industry whose sales now top around 35 billion dollars a year, of which 19 billion is export and 17 billion is domestic.” There are a number of challenges facing Australia’s meat industry custodians today, including supply chain disruptions and workforce shortages. “Our members work in all protein areas except chicken and seafood,” Mr. Hutchinson says. “The number one issue for these sectors is a shortage of labour. This problem was made even clearer during pandemic lockdowns- we saw meat off the shelves in supermarkets, prices skyrocketed, and freight and logistics became a bit of a nightmare. We supplement our domestic workforce with international workers. Obviously, with the borders closed, we lost that opportunity. What we would like to see moving forward is greater recognition of our workers as essential to the Australian ecosystem, through a dedicated meat supply chain Visa program that includes roles from processing to butchery and everything in between. This will make sure we can fill domestic gaps with international staff across skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled areas. The great thing about our industry is we offer everybody a job, from engineers, food scientists, health and nutrition, marketing… Everyone has a home in the meat supply chain industry.”