Industry

In going through my files to find old content, I've discovered some interesting articles. This, from 1999, is one of them.

From the AQIA Conference - Aug 1999

This is an extract from a paper presented by Lin Andrews. It addresses some of the issues facing growers and others who are forming organisations to support their industry. 

ESSENTIAL ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE

•Administration.

•Marketing.

•Production.

It is to each of these specialist components of your organisational structure that we now turn our attention.

Production

It is clear that if we cannot produce a product of consistent quality and of regular minimum supply, we do not have a business.

The very foundations of any organisation are its ability to produce a product or service.

Under the heading of production we have a series of sub-headings. For this particular association they may include some of the following:

Research - tree quality, fruit production, harvesting and processing.

Root stock availability:

Seedlings.

Graftings.

Other.

The availability of fruit:

Who will produce?

When?

What quantities?

The availability of whatever product:

Who will process?

Contractor or Merchant?

Quality assurance programs;

Definition of standards.

Who will police the standards?

Rewards/recognition, penalties.

Trade contracts for minimum supply:

Supplied to who?

What about over-supply?

Marketing

This is an extremely large subject and we may deal with some of the basic components of marketing later in this session, but the principle points of significance are as under:

The type of product which you are going to produce as an individual or as a private company or as an industry. These may include the following:

Unprocessed fruit.

Cut and processed fresh fruit.

Dried fruit.

Jam.

Chutney.

Beverages.

What are we selling?

Is it bushtucker? Is it a gourmet dish?

Name recognition

Are we selling Quandongs, which is a name that has no recognition outside of the local group of consumers and casual harvesters, or are we selling desert peach or wild peach?

Note that the Chinese Gooseberry failed, but the Kiwi Fruit is distributed to most countries of the western world.

Who is our market?

Are we going to sell to gourmet food stores or to the bushtucker set? Is it farm-door, country, city, or export?

Until we have a keen vision and definition of the end consumer, we will not even begin to understand how we should pack our food or what distribution channels to use.

How do we find the end user? What does he look like? Where does he live? How do we contact him? What can he afford? Why will he buy from you?

Administration

Without effective administration we will not have production and we will not have marketing.

Even this function on this weekend was brought about by somebody's intense administration in drawing us all together for this talk-feast or think-tank depending on whether you are participating or one of the quiet ones listening and about to give us all of the answers.