FLA News: An update for September

We are now just 30 days away from a history making event that is Access China ’16. Preparations have ramped up considerably in these past few weeks as the FLA team have been up to Shanghai recently to meet with Ag in the Asian Century speakers for the Monday October 24 conference section (CLICK HERE to download the latest program). As the Bank of New Zealand Business Chair Prof Siah Hwee Ang has said recently "Shanghai is the China of tomorrow" and with that in mind we are putting together a program that puts you in front of some cutting edge companies.

Apart from the listed speakers we have arranged a number of invitations to some premier Chinese and Asian companies: just a few of which are listed below:

1. Craig Aldous, CEO, Elders China, has been a facilitator for Australian food but particularly red meat businesses in China for the past 10 years. No Australian company that I know has set up distribution channels for the food service market like Elders China and with Craig’s huge knowledge of the Asia market he promises to be an engaging presenter/panelist at our events during the week. Craig is also the new Chairman of AustCham Shanghai, an organization with over 400 members. CLICK HERE to watch a short video interview with Craig.
2. Bright Foods – one of China’s largest food processors, as Liu Wen suggests in her article below we will do a site visit to Lianhao, one of their subsidiaries that imports around 6000 tonnes of imported beef per annum and is becoming an innovator in food marketing.
3. A key note speaker on the Monday at Hyatt on the Bund will be Michael Finucan, a former Toowoomba boy that heads up Meat and Livestock Australia’s (MLA)international operations based out of Beijing. MLA have done some sterling work in market access into China and now have the big task of preserving our premium brand position for red meat in that growing market. It is projected that China will be the largest export market for Aussie Beef by 2020 and last year we exported over 140,000 tonnes to China. New ports with Customs clearance capability are a big focus for the Australian industry going forward and Michael will update us on market trends and challenges going forward. It's not all work however, with Wednesday night being our Big Aussie BBQ, sponsored by NAB Agribusiness and Elders. MLA will also be there in force to help us showcase our regional beef product to the cosmopolitan Shanghai market in the heart of the French Concession.
4. Darren Burns – Chair of Innovation and Creativity at Weber Shandwick Asia Pacific is another key note speaker. Darren, a former Queenslander and Harvard Business School Alumni, heads up one of Asia’s best PR agencies and was Digital Marketing Expert of the year in 2016. Darren has worked across a number of sectors but particularly the fast-moving consumer goods sector and has handled clients from McDonalds to the Beijing Olympics and Shanghai World Expo. His passion for delivering results-oriented, integrated campaigns has helped Weber Shandwick become one of China’s most celebrated and awarded agencies. Over the past two years, the Agency has won no less than six “Agency of the Year” awards including Mumbrella Asia Greater China PR Agency of the Year 2015, Campaign Asia Pacific Greater China PR Agency of the Year 2014 and PRWeek Greater China Agency of the Year 2014.
5. William Zhao - Head of Commercial for Metcash Asia (owners of IGA supermarkets, Mitre 10 and Bottle-o) - we have known William for a while now and in his words: “Metcash Asia is focusing on two key streams of businesses here in China, sourcing and exports. We have our e-commerce cross border business set up on Tmall and towards the end of the year we will be launching our B2B, B2B2C export distribution business here in China. The idea is to offer a compelling platform to the Chinese market on all products made from Australia or New Zealand, our key value proposition will be our access to the Australian market and the ability to supply Chinese consumers with good variety of produce at affordable prices (albeit better margins for suppliers in Australia).” 
6. We are arranging some site visits to local premium retailers like City Shop, Metro and Carrefour.
7. We will get to meet Ele.me! – a food delivery business that now supplies 500, 000 restaurant across 21 cities in China and now importing product for those F&B groups – Ele.me! is China’s most popular food delivery service and is the country’s second largest online-to-offline (O2O) food ordering market, with 50 million customers and delivering on 100 million yuan (A$20.6 million) of transactions a day. We look forward to hearing from these guys their insights into consumer trends in China, and how this is evolving the growth in E-Commerce consumer preferences.
8. We will cover not just the Chinese consumer but market access and supply chain issues with participants from Toll Logistics – Toll are now under Japan Post ownership and have been importing chilled beef and dairy in the Shanghai region for the past two years - have built an impressive cold chain capability in the past 12 months.

9. Hangzhou Reach24 – experts in customs clearance and market access advisory – former China Customs official that now work in the private sector.

10. Eurofins – we will meet Mark Ralph MD of the European food testing company that helps foreign brands enter the China domestic market (and President of the local rugby club the Shanghai Hairy Crabs).

11. Charlie Yin - Business Development Manager for Australia Post’s JV with China Post, Saicheng, a fast growing venture that has extensive warehousing capabilities and are now building an online platform for perishables including beef products branded with Australia Post logo (on screen not on product) - as a trust mark for Chinese consumers – impressive progress for a key delivery agency.

12. Austrade & TIQ Shanghai are providing support for the delegation and are helping us with the business matching component as well. As is the fantastic Asian network that our AccessChina'16 Partner ANZ are allowing us access to during the week. Importantly, we will be accompanied by our own Australian and QLD government representatives the Hon Keith Pitt, Assistant Minister for Trade, Investment and Tourism and member for Hinkler to our north; and Dr Anthony Lynham, Minister for State Development and Resources. Combined with our own Mayor Paul Antonio their presence helps immensely in the Chinese business context.
13. One of our key sponsors is the ZhongFu group - a group that has invested significantly in Australian agriculture and is setting up an impressive distribution network within China.
14. Apart from the super impressive Shanghai Yangshan deep water port we have arranged a visit to PACTYL - the Air Cargo logistics hub out of Shanghai airport where the product gets delivered for services like QANTAS Freight.
15. We will also have online retail giants like Alibaba’s TMALL, G-Shop (importing dairy and chilled beef), the Shanghai Meat Association, the China National Food Safety Authority, the Shanghai Municipal Government, and the Shanghai Food and Drug Administration.

We have designed this program for your businesses in the view that as an Australian producer you will not only get a lot of interest and leads on how China could work for you but also some insight into how you can make China/Asia happen for your business. 

Our full time BD Manager based in Shanghai Ms Liu Wen has outstanding contacts in the F&B market up there and is doing an outstanding job for our region. 

In addition to these names we are really looking forward to having ABC Landline’s Pip Courtney join the delegation as well as Craig Zonca from ABC radio’s Queensland Country hour, The Australian, AFR, QLD Country Life, NewsCorp will all be covering the event along with Chinese media. We are the first region or private enterprise to undertake such a venture so another first for one of the great regional economies that FLA and TSBE are proud to service.