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MLA’s Black Box Culinary Challenge raises awareness of the versatility
and exacting standards of the Australian red meat industry.
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INFLUENCING THE INFLUENCERS
AGGRESSIVE PROMOTION IN THE MARKETPLACE
Our efforts to grow demand for red meat include encouraging better carcase utilisation by butchers and working with influential food writers and chefs to ensure red meat appears as much as possible on menus in the restaurant and catering sector in Australia and overseas.
The locals
We developed the Red Meat Networking Club in 2003 and during the year it continued to provide one of the most successful avenues for growing demand for red meat. Focused on raising retail standards through product range, quality, labelling and growing professionalism in the butchery sector, membership in 2007–08 grew 15 per cent to nearly 2,000 nationally – around 50 per cent of Australian butchers.
Counter Attack is a new Red Meat Networking Club program to encourage and assist butchers to develop innovative ways of adding value to secondary cuts of red meat. We ran 15 butcher workshops for 357 participants representing 220 stores during the year, and a core group of 50 participants, who totally embraced the products developed, reported an increase of 15–20 per cent on their beef sales.
To demystify livestock production systems and show the professionalism of Australia’s beef, sheep and goatmeat producers to the industry’s frontline, we took 160 chefs and butchers on eight MLA-run paddock-to-plate tours during the year.
We also coordinated displays featuring red meat cooking and butchery demonstrations at the Foodservice Australia trade show in Sydney and the Restaurant 08 trade show in Melbourne. These events provided a showcase for beef and lamb meal options, and highlighted a wide range of products from offal to highly marbled beef and a wide range of goat and lamb products to over 15,000 chefs and food industry professionals.
What’s cooking abroad
Working with wholesalers, chefs and foodservice operators is a fundamental part of the international beef and lamb marketing strategies. In 2007–08, for the first time, we began a total supply chain program with the Hilton Hotel Group to grow their Australian red meat categories on a regional rather than country- or outlet-specific basis. We co-operated with Hilton to provide 60 of their international chefs with a workshop on using secondary cuts of Australian beef and lamb to ensure they kept red meat on their menus rather than replacing it with cheaper protein alternatives. Ninety-six percent of participants indicated the workshop would be instrumental in shaping their next meat purchasing decision and wholesalers indicated an immediate increase in sales of the cuts featured in the workshop.
The MLA Black Box Culinary Challenge returned for the 12th year in a row to raise awareness among chefs globally of the versatility and exacting standards of the Australian red meat industry. The now famous culinary competition also supports the development of up-and-coming chefs and encourages the pursuit of red meat knowledge and innovation with alternative cuts around the world. The competition culminated in the 4th Global Grand Final held in Dubai in May 2008 which saw 19 teams competing for the coveted global champion award for their country from a pool of more than 200 teams and 800 chefs. The South Korean team from the Grand InterContinental Seoul were the winners.
In North America we launched a program to promote Australian lamb on bar, appetiser and lunch menus. This followed extensive research that identified 70 per cent of Americans had never tried lamb and were more likely to try the product for the first time in a foodservice outlet. To generate interest and demonstrate the versatility of Australian lamb in the foodservice sector we produced the Hot Trends, Cool Chefs brochure and distributed it with Food Arts magazine— a leading monthly American foodservice magazine circulated to 70,000 industry professionals. The campaign also included advertising and public relations activities. While it is still early in the campaign and difficult to track changes in menu placements in the estimated 900,000 foodservice outlets across the nation, it is promising to note industry is developing new products to support the program.
Training is a critical component of our activities in all markets but our work with trade professionals in emerging markets such as the Middle East is fundamental to our strategy.
The burgeoning Middle Eastern food sector saw us deliver 18 training workshops to 515 butchers and chefs to develop an appreciation of the positive attributes of Australian beef in 2007–08. The workshops built a better understanding of Australian red meat and how to use alternative cuts, reinforced our reputation as producers of safe product and educated them about the integrity of the Australian Halal brand. We conducted training in partnership with importers and their client retailer or hotel, allowing broader relationships and loyalty to be formed. As a result of the initiative, sales of chilled beef rump – a cut not traditionally demanded by this market but strongly featured in the workshops – increased 102 per cent in Jordan and UAE.
