IMPORTED berries contaminated with Hepatitis A have caused a kerfuffle around import regulations, but the incident also swings the spotlight back to Australian agriculture’s own stop-start attempts to make a better case for consumers favouring its produce.
The growing lines of imported foods on supermarket shelves play to price, one of the great drivers of consumer purchasing.
Price isn’t the only thing consumers watch, though. Those who are careful about food costs might still find cause to buy an Apple iDevice, or brand-name clothing, or a particular model of car.
People spend more to buy these items because they are buying into a brand. A brand, in the definition of marketing guru Seth Godin, “is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.”
Despite the multiplying of individual food brands, Australian agriculture as a whole lacks a brand identity outside its “clean, green” mantra.
Question of an Aus ag brand
The winning essay, by David Thompson, communications manager with the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, gave a solid “yes” to the question.
Australian agriculture needs to give people reasons other than price on which to gauge value, Mr Thompson wrote.
An integrated brand that gives consumers certainty that produce meets a range of standards imprints the message that “Australian produce is worth paying a premium for”.
Branding is currently used as ordinance in the ongoing war for market share - Woolworths’ Jamie Oliver marketing push versus Coles’ Hester Blumenthal campaign are highly visible examples.
“These initiatives are great,” Mr Thompson wrote, “but they have the air of being singular, that is, designed and delivered for the benefit of one party – or at least perceived to”.
“What a (Brand Australia) must do is transcend such ownership issues.”
The 'final food experience'
Mr Thompson advocates a “Restaurant Australia Ready” brand that emphasises the “importance of the final food experience and the readiness of products to deliver that experience”.
“By focusing on the final food experience, we capture the flavours of the entire Australian food story and place the emphasis on delivering quality right through until the end of the supply chain.”
The brand and its auditing could be funded on a similar model to the United Kingdom’s successful Red Tractor brand. Businesses wanting to use the Red Tractor logo pay an annual royalty fee on a flexible scale that varies according to business size, output and industry sector.
A rigorously-backed brand could overcome some country-of-origin labelling issues, Mr Thompson told Fairfax Media, because Australian provenance and safe, ethical production is implicit in the brand.
And while the merit of Australian-grown produce is already known, a brand would clarify the fact that rigorous standards have been applied at every level of production, from soil to plate.
One brand won't fit all
Mitchell Hughes, a farmer from southern NSW, agreed in his essay that Country of Origin labelling (CoOL) and brand development would be valuable to Australian agribusiness.
However, Mr Hughes observed that benefits would accrue mostly to existing private brands and niche markets able to control supply.
Commodity products would gain less benefit, if any, and so how to apportion the costs of a national branding strategy would have to be carefully thought through.
Peter Elliott, a strategic grains market analyst with the Australian Export Grains Innovation Centre (AEGIC), went deeper into this question.
Ansell, the Australian manufacturer of rubber-based products, makes everything from industrial gloves to condoms, Mr Elliott wrote.
“Due to the fact that a common brand for condoms and industrial safety gloves would be pointless at best and counterproductive at worst, they are separately branded.
“If the branding decisions for Australian agriculture are determined by the business model and there are clearly a virtual cornucopia of various models operating under the ‘agriculture’ umbrella, it seems illogical to suggest that ... a single brand would be an appropriate tactic for all sub-sectors.”
Ruth Ahchow, Associate Director in the Economics, Regulation and Policy Group at Ernst & Young and a former member of the Coles corporate affairs team, also has reservations about the wisdom of a one-size-fits-all brand.
“While there may appear to be more ‘bang from buck’ for a common national brand, existing regional, industry and private product brands will continue to exist – and have their place in the marketing mix,” she wrote in her essay.
“Australia must therefore consider the additional benefit of a national brand to the Australian agricultural industry prior to investing scarce resources to a brand that may just add noise to an already branded market.”