CAAB retirement marks an end on productive half-century meat career

Not a lot of people have exerted as much influence over the shape and direction of modern Australian red meat retailing, marketing, brand development and supply chain management as Phil

Morley.

The personable 63-year-old officially retires as the CAAB - CEO at the end of this month, handing

over the reins as chief executive of the hugely-successful Certified Australian Angus Beef program after an illustrious 47-year career spanning the length and breadth of the red meat supply chain.

Phil will finish up after a CAAB board-meeting on September 29, following the recent appointment of

Kate Brabin to take up his role as  the  program’s  new  CEO.

He took up his post at CAAB in March, 2008, as the final chapter in his career, building on the strong foundation that was already in place since  CAAB’s  launch. Remarkably, CAAB has had just two CEOs

over its 19-year  history,  firstly  led  by  Michael  Pointer  since  the  program’s  inception  in  1996, and

followed by Phil Morley for the most recent six years.

What some may forget is the fact that prior to engaging with CAAB, Phil had already had a long and

productive career across the domestic supermarket retail space.

His start in the meat industry came as a 16-year old apprentice butcher, and his career has followed

a diverse and influential trajectory over the next half-century.

‘Forward  thinking’

If  there  is  a  word  or  phrase  that  describes  Phil’s  approach  to  retail  and  marketing/brand  identity,  it  has to be  ‘forward  thinking.’

Many of the elements of modern-day large-scale supermarket beef supply chains have his

fingerprints on them.

As a senior Woolworths executive during the 1990-06 era, Phil was given free-rein by the then

Woolworths chief, Reg Clairs, to  ‘think  outside  the  square’  about  how  best  to  fill  modern  domestic  supermarket retail needs.

Among the many elements he initiated were dedicated supply based on long-term forward price contracts, greater reliance on feedlot-finishing to produce more consistent year-round product and

greatly expanded livestock and carcase performance feedback. He also started to push supermarket

carcase weights out to heavier specs, which were not only more efficient to produce, but started to

align better with export programs.

In the early 1990s, Phil worked collaboratively with lotfeeders and AMLC to launch a trial called ‘TenderChoice’,  where  for  the  first  time  ever  there  was  a  branded  product,  using  a  tight  spec,  put  before supermarket customers. The product came out of  Dugald  Cameron’s  Aronui  feedlot  near  Dalby.  Prior  to  that,  the  word  ‘Woolworths’  was  seen  as  the  only  beef  brand  necessary.

The result proved that domestic consumers did, in fact, see value in a product produced to a set of

quality specs designed to deliver greater consistency.

Phil was also a key player in the formation of Meat Standards Australia, sitting on the MSA steering committee chaired during the mid-1990s by David Crombie.

The seismic shift in thinking about the domestic beef market, as outlined above, led to this writer

presenting Phil with the inaugural Rural Press Beef Industry Achiever of the Year award in 1997, in

recognition of his pioneering work in developing more sophisticated supermarket beef supply chains.

Pioneering  work  in  ‘Natural’  segment

Without question, Phil Morley was also probably three or four years ahead of the pack when he started  exploring  opportunities  within  the  CAAB  business  for  a  ‘natural’,  ‘grassfed’  premium  beef  product, later to be launched as Angus Pure in 2009.

“I  had  a  battle  with  the  CAAB  board  in  getting  them  to  recognise  the  merit  in  moving  away  from  the  tried-and-true  CAAB  grainfed  formula,”  Phil  recalled.

“Terms  like  ‘natural’  and  ‘pasturefed’  were  in  their  infancy  back  then,  and  consumers  were  only  just beginning  to  discover  the  merits  and  brand  attributes  of  beef  from  this  production  background,”  he  said.

“Certainly  grassfed  beef  was  selling  in  Australia  prior  to  that  time,  but  it  never  had  any  real  quality  criteria behind it. When we added words like  ‘Angus’,  ‘MSA-graded’,  ‘no  HGP/antibiotic’  and  ‘grassfed’,  it  created  something  different,  which  the  market  was  just  beginning  to  look  for.”

At that stage, the main CAAB program (grainfed) was going absolutely gangbusters, with 700,000 to

800,000kg a month going into Japan and Korea, plus big uptake in the domestic market.

“Why  do  you  want  to  stuff  around  with  a  pasturefed  product?  the  CAAB  board  asked  me.  At  that  point it was all about high-quality grainfed, as it is in the equivalent US Certified Angus Beef

program,”  Phil  said.

Some of his over-the horizon thinking in this space came from earlier involvement in the

establishment of the Lilydale free-range poultry range in Australian retailing during his earlier days with Woolworths, Coles and Dairyfarm. He could see the momentum starting to emerge in this

space.

“Full  Certified  Organic  was  also  building  support,  but  god  bless  it,  it  was  twice  the  price  and  often  not  as  good  on  the  tooth,”  he  said.

“No-one could say Organic was the most fabulous product you could buy. But I thought there was plenty of opportunity for a product somewhere in the middle – natural, pasturefed, no HGP or

antibiotic. It was an easy product to build a brand story around, and carried many of the attractions

of Organic, without the  productivity  compromise,  or  extreme  price  point.”

Phil managed to convince the CAAB board to give it a shot, and the decision was made to roll the

Angus Pure program out, with a primary focus on the retail butchery sector.

CAAB took the project concept to T&R Pastoral (now Thomas International Foods) at Murray Bridge, and received immediate support.

“T&R  already  held  a  license  to  produce  the  CAAB  grainfed  product,  but  when  I  pitched  to  them  about Angus Pure, they (particularly livestock manager Petar Bond) could see the potential in a

premium  grassfed  brand,”  Phil  said.

So  new  was  the  notion  of  the  term  ‘natural’  that  when  approached  by  CAAB  for  definitions  that  might  apply  for  export  into  the  US,  the  best  standard  the  USDA  could  come  up  with  was  ‘minimally-

processed’,  with  no  reference  to  feed  regime,  or  other  attributes.

“The  USDA  did  not  really  have  a  standard  at  that  time,  so  we  created  our  own,  which  has  stood  the  test  of  time,”  Phil  said.

In  the  five  years  since  its  launch,  CAAB’s  Angus  Pure  program has now grown to 1300 head per

week, out of Murray Bridge and Casino, in the north.

Last year, CAAB and Angus Pure combined were responsible for around 107,000 cattle presented for

the programs. About 75,000 of those were CAAB grainfed, with 35,000 for Angus Pure. The plan in place with TFI is to see the Angus Pure program grow to 2000 head per week.

Today, Phil sees virtually the entire future of the Australian beef industry is in branding.

“If  as  an  exporter  or  domestic  beef  supplier  you  don’t  have  a solid brand presence, you have nothing

to build your attributes on. Just look at where JBS has come from over the past three years, in transitioning  from  commodity  beef  to  a  series  of  integrated  brand  programs.”

But brand identity, in the form of words like  ‘Angus’  could  also  work  in  other  directions.

“Go  into  a  supermarket  today  and  you’ll  see  beef  pies,  McCain’s  pizzas  and  Campbell’s  soups  all  carrying  ‘Angus’  or  ‘CAAB’  identity.  That’s  when  you  know  branding  is  really  working  for  you,”  Phil  said.

Given his longstanding retail experience, he said he could not have foreseen the day when

Woolworths would proudly stock a grassfed branded beef offer in stores, at a premium item.

“I  applaud  them  for  it.  In  fact  I’m  absolutely  delighted  to  see  that  the  branded beef concept in Australia continues to go from strength to strength, in raw form in specialty butcher shops, as well as

on-shelf or in chilled cabinets in supermarkets.

“That  extends  from  heat  and  serve  pre-cooked meals, to pies, soups, lasagne, pizzas and countless

other  items  carrying  beef  brand  identity.  If  you  can  get  that  brand  connection,  you’re  really  into  mainstream.  If  you  just  focus  on  the  chilled  meat  operation,  you’ll  never  grow,  certainly  as  much  as  extending the brand in different directions.”

Breed content standard

While Angus Pure program is one of the obvious legacies Phil has left at CAAB, there are a number of

others.

The  program’s  strong  stand  on  breed  content  is  a  good  example.  Other  ‘Angus’  derived  brand  programs overseas notoriously have little credibility on delivering assurances over breed content,

often doing no breed content testing whatsoever.

In contrast, CAAB has set a high benchmark on content, under a breed raising claim, and DNA verification.

“The  heartache  we  went through over integrity in breed content claims, even appearing before a

Senate committee examining truth in labelling in food products, has stood CAAB and Australia in

good  stead,”  Phil  said.

“I  would  say  today  that  for  all  the  major  Australian  players making an Angus brand claim, the

product is in fact Angus – not  just  ‘Angus  influenced’  - and that gives me an enormous amount of

satisfaction,”  he  said.

Also  during  Phil’s  engagement,  CAAB  linked  with  the  McDonald’s  burger  chain  to  deliver  the  Angus  ‘premium’  message  to  an  entirely  new  segment  of  the  food  service  industry.

It  turned  out  to  be  an  absolute  coup,  as  McDonald’s  flexed  its  considerable  marketing  muscle,  spending  $10  million  on  marketing  burgers  including  the  word,  ‘Angus’  across  Australia.

“The  clear  implication  to  consumers  Australia  wide  was,  ‘Buy  Angus  and  you’re  buying  a  premium  product’,”  Phil  said.

Since  it’s  launch,  more  than  25  million  kilograms  of  certified  Angus  beef  trim  has  been  directed  into  the  McDonald’s  burger  program,  and  the  company rates its McAngus program as one of its best-ever

product introductions.

The  word,  ‘Angus’  has  since  taken  on  a  brand  cache  all  of  its  own,  rivalled  only,  perhaps,  by  the  word,  ‘Wagyu.’

“When  I  joined  CAAB  back  in  2008,  JBS  didn’t  have  an  Angus-derived brand. Teys did not have an

Angus  brand.  Nor  did  Nippon,  Bindaree  and  others,”  Phil  said.

“They  all  now  have  a  brand  portfolio  that  includes  at  least  one  premium  brand  with  clear  ‘Angus’  identity.  We’ve  almost  been  a  victim  of  our  own  success,  but  CAAB has been a wonderful vehicle for

the Angus cattle producers of Australia, because it has now driven all those other big players to

launch  and  promote  an  Angus  brand.”

But at what point does the word, Angus, start to lose cache, simply because there are so many other

Angus-identified brands in the market?

“The  word  Angus  won’t  lose  its  gloss.  But  in  the  case  of  CAAB,  the  direction  we’re  now  taking  in  marketing  is  in  trying  to  simplify  what  it  is,  and  what  it  represents.  Essentially,  there’s  many  Angus-

derived brands, but only one CAAB, and the catch-cry  now  being  used  is  “The  Angus  brand  owned  by  Aussie  Angus  growers.”

“We  have  to  play  on  that  sense  of  producer  ownership  a  little,”  Phil  said.

What lies ahead?

Rather than simply riding off into the sunset, Phil Morley said he did not like to use the word,

‘retirement’  to  describe  his  immediate plans for the future.

“If  somebody  asked  me  to  work  full  time  again,  I’d  knock  it  back.  But  I’d  like  to  stay  engaged  –

perhaps sitting on Industry or Company boards and doing some project work on supply chain

development,  branding  or  brand  development,  or  a  related  field,”  he  said.

Regardless of what lies ahead, he can look back at his 47 years in the industry as one of those rare people  who  truly  ‘made  a  difference.’

On behalf of the industry Beef Central salutes you, Phil Morley.