What the hell have we been thinking?
Some time ago I mused that the slow death of the Australian FMCG manufacturing base was akin to nicking a slice off a cut loaf, one at a time. At any specific time you do not really notice the difference, but looked at over a period, the loss is obvious.
Well, it seems that someone nicked the Food industry loaf, and all we have left are the crumbs.
A report released last week by Food Navigator reveals Australia’s top 10 FMCG suppliers.
Not one of them is owned by Australians.
Let me say that again: Not one is owned by Australians!
Over time I have worked for two businesses on the list, and at the time, both were aggressively and proudly Australian, wearing the national flag on their shoulders, and in their advertising, and both were in their way successful despite themselves. However, dismay at some of the nonsense that went on is a primary reason I have been self-employed for the last 22 years.
I struggle to think of many substantial companies still domestically owned, Bega, Patties Pies and San Remo come to mind, but we are then down to the minnows.
All these multinationals will rightly say that they pay lots of taxes, employ lots of Australians, both directly, and indirectly, and that they have Australian best interests at heart.
Bullshit.
It is true they employ many people, and it is true that they pay unavoidable taxes, like GST, local government rates, and collect from their employees PAYE, but do they carry the full weight of their ‘moral obligations’ to the communities they live in via income taxes? The reality is that have their own best interests at heart, or at least, most of them do. Transfer pricing, creative funding, corporate domicile on low tax environments, and all the rest of the shenanigans revealed again, by the Paradise Papers in the past weeks or so are widespread. It should not come as a surprise to anybody when these large companies make decisions in their interests, not in those of Australians and Australia.
This is like renting a house. You are allowed to live in it, under certain conditions, but you have no control over the property, someone else makes all the key decisions. The renters best interests are not a factor in the determination of the owners best interests.
We tell ourselves we are a food bowl, and we are, but without any access to the markets at all. We no longer even have any brands for direct contact with consumers (Vegemite is a rare example, purchased back from Kraft last year by Bega, hooray). We are therefore nothing other than commodity suppliers in a price driven world. Not being a low cost producer, without the umbrella of brands and control of the operational infrastructure that can deliver genuine value to consumers, we are inevitably going to be screwed, with the benefits of ownership exported.
Coles and Woollies have ‘conspired’ to destroy the domestic suppliers and their brands by limiting ranges, replacing proprietary brands with house brands, sourced from wherever is convenient and cheap, realising short term margin gains at the expense of long term prosperity, both theirs and that of the communities they serve. They have also lost in the process the cover of brands at a time where there is a huge retail disruption looming: Amazon, online ordering, AI, ‘Ubered’ home delivery, and all the rest.
It seems to me the two retail gorillas will now reap the poison crop they sowed as an outcome of their short term, one dimensional and absolutely unimaginative strategies. Taking on Amazon with that mind-set is suicide, as if we know anything about Amazon, it is that they do not play by the existing rules. They make up a new set, and the incumbents are left to wonder in their wake.
Food manufacturing used to be our biggest manufacturing industry, and we have given it away, or at least the benefits of ownership of it, for next to nothing. It is not even as if for the most part the interlopers paid a premium for control, they just waited until the numbers were so crap that they could take it for a song. The most recent example, Murray Goulbourn is a classic case in point, as are two of my previous corporate employers, Dairy Farmers and Goodman Fielder. Both reasonably large, reasonably successful businesses stuffed by poor management decisions until they became unsuccessful smaller ones, that could be scooped up out of Multinational petty cash.
Our kids will pay a heavy price for the short sighted and incompetent management of their fathers and grandfathers. (Cannot help wondering if their grandmothers and mothers would have done a better job)
Our so called leaders mumble abut populist causes, ignoring the difficult and challenging long term choices that need to be made, which are usually by definition, not populist. It took a crisis to get them to consider ‘power policy’ in their quiet, moments when not looking after their own jobs in the face of failing to check if they are technically Australians, but it is 25 years too late. ‘Manufacturing policy’ discussions are pretty thin on the ground, now the motor industry has folded their tents, and more specific ‘Food Industry Policy’ discussions are as rare as sightings of the Tasmanian tiger. Rumoured but carrying very little real credibility.
There has been very little of much value about any policy setting that might help us control and leverage our own agricultural and manufacturing capabilities that would enable us to feel confident we can feed ourselves, and others in the region into the medium term. The horse has bolted, and we are left with a pile of shit in the stables.
Sadly, few in power seem to be too concerned with the demise of our ability to control our own food supply, value adding and distribution.
If nothing else, we may have discovered an innovative solution to the national obesity problem.
