Challenges and Opportunities in Australian Food Marketing: Meat Sector

This report provides an executive summary and detailed analysis of the Australian food industry, with a specific focus on the meat sector. It explores the competitive challenges, including international competition, large-scale processing issues, product differentiation, capital investment, market inflation, lack of market coordination, understanding consumer preferences, and supermarket competition. The report also identifies opportunities such as cost reduction through robotics, enhancing green credentials, and improving transparency for cleaner products. The conclusion emphasizes the need for businesses to adapt by integrating technology, analyzing customer needs, evaluating market trends, employing strategic moves, and adopting eco-friendly practices to ensure long-term growth and sustainability within the meat sector.

Running head: Food Marketing 1
Food Marketing

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Executive Summary
The purpose of writing this report is to understand the various competitive challenges and
opportunities faced by the Australian food industry and to have the key focus on the meat sector.
With the increased government regulation and changing needs of the consumers, there is increase
in both the opportunities as well as the challenges. The report will give a brief about some of the
most prominent challenges which are required to overcome and few opportunities that
organisations can take use to sustain in the meat sector of the Australian food industry.

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Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................2
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Competitive challenges and opportunities facing the meat sector of the Australian food industry 4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
The nature of the competition in the food industry of Australia is rapidly rising which is giving
rise to number of challenges as well as opportunities. The meat industry is one of the most well-
known sectors which face numerous challenges as well as integration of technological
advancements results in increase number of opportunities too (Hocquette, et al., 2012). The
report will present the various competitive challenges and opportunities faced by the meat sector
of the Australian food industry.
Competitive challenges and opportunities facing the meat sector of the
Australian food industry
Challenges faced by the meat sector of the Australian food industry

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(Source: AMPC, 2016)
Challenges facing the meat industry of the Australian food industry are rising with an upsurge
rate which is making difficult for the companies to sustain. There are several kinds of challenges
such as environmental, legal, competitive, technological, etc. But in present scenario, due to
several factors, there is a strong threat of the competitive challenges to the businesses.
International Competition
The primary challenge is of the growing international competition as there is effective supply of
the meat to manage the demand by the global companies through strong distribution channels
and huge production capacity. This kills the share of the domestic companies and poses as a
challenge for them to sustain (McConchie, 2016).
Large-scale off-shore Processing
There are only few key players that are processing the meat at large scale but still there are issues
related to the processing of the meat at large scale. Because of the incapability to process at
large-scale, the global players take possession of the markets and it kills the share of the regional
players.
Incompetence to produce undifferentiated products
Another key competitive challenge in the meat sector is that there is extreme lack of
differentiation. To sustain the market share, there is a much need to offer differentiated products
to the consumers so that they do not switch to other brands due to lack of differentiation
(Pethick, et al., 2011).
Insufficient capital investment
Insufficiency of the capital or lack of investments results in squat level of innovative practices to
produce meat and this poses a competitive challenge for the companies. It has been analysed that
the domestic player who are small in size not have much capital to invest and this restricts their
growth and make them out from the market competition.
Unmanageable inflation in primary markets

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In few of the key markets, there has been experienced sudden inflation which restricts the sale of
the meat products and the unmanageability leads to decline market share of the company. There
is a high need of having appropriate management of the production, demand and supply so that
organisation does not have to face competitive challenges (AMPC, 2016).
Lack of market coordination
In Australia, it has also been analysed that there is extreme shortage of the market coordination
which leads to ineffective supply of the meat products. Three is a strong need of market
coordination so that the demands can be met successfully by the domestic suppliers and the
global players do not fetch the market share (Bell, et al., 2014).
Incompetence to understand the upsurge consumer and dynamic preferences
Another key competitive challenge is lack of competence to understand and analyse the
continuously rising and dynamic preferences of the consumers. The companies do not undertake
such analysis and the lack of innovative practices, technological advancements and upgrade
processing result in dissatisfaction of the consumers (Troy and Kerry, 2010).
Supermarket war
There is a strong and robust challenge imposed by the supermarkets on the growth and sales of
the domestic retailers. The availability of fresh meat in lesser value, the consumers tend to
purchase from the supermarkets and this results in cutting down of the market share of the
regional players. This develops strong crisis among the domestic retailers and the supermarkets
in Australia and thus the overall growth of the meat sector restricts (Reardon, et al., 2003).
Opportunities in the meat sector of the Australian food industry
Reducing costs with Robotics
It is presently one of the pioneering opportunity for the Australian meat sector to develop and
achieve success by taking sue of robots as new ways for packaging and processing of the
products. There is extensive use of robots for achieving many benefits such as faster application,
increased safety, lowered work place injury, reduced dependence upon labours and improve

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sanitation. Thus, to sustain and grow, the companies should take use of robotics technology
(Runvik, 2017).
Green credentials
The importance of “green bar” is rising with time and it is one of the challenge as well as the
opportunity for the industries. In present time, the consumers are willing to pay additional
amount for environment safe and healthier, green and organic food products. Thus, there are
several environment implications associated with meat production. Thus, it is an opportunity for
the companies to enhance the green credentials and upsurge the sales in both domestic as well as
global markets (International Food & Meat Topics , n.d.).
Enhancing transparency and clean products
It is another opportunity for the Australian meat sector to extend the customer base and increase
the sales by enhancing the transparency level by offering a more detailed and clear info to the
consumers in respect with the production, processing and packaging of the meat products. If the
consumers will offered more clean products with increased level of integrity, there are high
chances of customer reliability and less threat of decreased market share (Trienekens and
Zuurbier, 2008).
Conclusion
The report offers insight of several competitive opportunities and challenges faced by the meat
sector of the Australian food industry. It has been evaluated that with the change in time and
technologies, both the opportunities as well as challenges are growing for the domestic retailers
of the nation. Thus, it is necessary to sustain these challenges and manage the long-term growth
and sustainability of the businesses by focusing on few key factors such as integration of
technology, analysis of customer needs, evaluation of the market trends, strategic moves, use of
eco-friendly practices and offering more green and sustainable products which are hygienic and
safe in nature.

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References
AMPC, 2016. STRATEGIC RISKS FACING THE AUSTRALIAN RED MEAT INDUSTRY.
Accessed on: 26th August, 2017. Pp.60. Accessed from:
http://www.ampc.com.au/uploads/cgblog/id65/42161_AMPC_RiskDocumentvLR.pdf
Bell, L.W., Hayes, R.C., Pembleton, K.G. and Waters, C.M., 2014. Opportunities and challenges
in Australian grasslands: pathways to achieve future sustainability and productivity
imperatives. Crop and Pasture Science, 65(6), pp.489-507.
Hocquette, J.F., Botreau, R., Picard, B., Jacquet, A., Pethick, D.W. and Scollan, N.D., 2012.
Opportunities for predicting and manipulating beef quality. Meat science, 92(3), pp.197-209.
International Food & Meat Topics, n.d. Challenges and opportunities for the meat sector. Pp.2.
Accessed on: 26th August, 2017. Accessed from:
http://www.positiveaction.info/pdfs/articles/fm28_1p29.pdf
McConchie, R., 2016. Red meat sustainability report offers a feast of ideas to tackle challenges.
Accessed on: 26th August, 2017. Accessed from:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2016-10-26/report-outlines-challenges-red-meat-processing-
industry/7968482
Pethick, D.W., Ball, A.J., Banks, R.G. and Hocquette, J.F., 2011. Current and future issues
facing red meat quality in a competitive market and how to manage continuous
improvement. Animal Production Science, 51(1), pp.13-18.
Reardon, T., Timmer, C.P., Barrett, C.B. and Berdegué, J., 2003. The rise of supermarkets in
Africa, Asia, and Latin America. American journal of agricultural economics, 85(5), pp.1140-
1146.
Runvik, K., 2017. How Robots Are Changing the Food Industry. Accessed on: 26th August,
2017. Accessed from: http://foodindustryexecutive.com/2017/02/how-robots-are-changing-the-
food-industry/

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Trienekens, J. and Zuurbier, P., 2008. Quality and safety standards in the food industry,
developments and challenges. International Journal of Production Economics, 113(1), pp.107-
122.
Troy, D.J. and Kerry, J.P., 2010. Consumer perception and the role of science in the meat
industry. Meat science, 86(1), pp.214-226.