Is there much demand for pork in Dubai? Plus, why farmers need to tell their story

Charlotte: 00:00:00

I was hoping that Hannah was gonna be here today because we had a very fun night on Tuesday. Who knew that Hannah was so good at being deceptive about being or not, as actually the case may be. We were playing a card game called Saboteur.

And in that you were either a saboteur or you're not. Well, anyway, I don't know that she got to play a single turn because she was so obviously trying to sabotage everyone.

Producer Martin: 00:00:28

So you're saying she's not very good at.

Charlotte: 00:00:32

I'm saying she is too honest for her own good, which is probably a good thing. Which means that perhaps that game is not playing to her strengths. She is very good at articulate, though.

Producer Martin: 00:00:58

Hi, I'm producer Martin.

Charlotte: 00:01:00

I'm Charlotte Forkes-Rees and welcome to The AG Show.

Producer Martin: 00:01:04

This week's guests are very much from the pig side of the Pig and Poultry Fair that took place last week. But their stories and advice have universal appeal.

Charlotte: 00:01:13

First up, an Essex farmer who began his exports journey selling products to expats in Dubai.

Fergus: 00:01:20

We got a request to send some samples out to Dubai, which you think is a bit strange. Muslim country, they can't eat that much pork.

But if you go to the supermarkets in Dubai, they have a pork room, press the button, the doors open and you go into a pork and outer alcohol room.

Producer Martin: 00:01:34

We'll also hear from our very own trade butcher manager, Martin Eccles, about how our fifth quarter products differ in price here compared to when they're sold overseas.

Butcher Martin: 00:01:44

The aorta. So it's a valve that comes out of the heart. If we catch in this country, it's going into cat food, so into pet food. So again, 22p a kilo.

If we export it out to China, we're getting five pound forty. So it's quite a significant jump in price.

Charlotte: 00:01:58

And we'll be hearing why one farmer believes all farmers should consider telling their story.

Shane: 00:02:03

If you're not comfortable with social media and filming videos, start local and see how it goes. Visit one of your local schools, visit your past school and it just has that ripple effect.

Producer Martin: 00:02:15

A reminder, new episodes of the Ag show drop every Wednesday at midday and they are available wherever you get your.

Charlotte: 00:02:22

Podcasts with audio and video versions for every show. Just subscribe to make sure you don't miss an episode.

Producer Martin: 00:02:31

And please do get in touch. We always love hearing from you. Comment on any of our social posts or email agshow@ahdb.org.uk

Charlotte: 00:02:42

Now, Martin, I know we don't have Hannah here this week. You haven't replaced her. You didn't leave her at Pig and Poultry, did you, with your friend in the background there?

Producer Martin: 00:02:51

No, very good point.

Obviously, Hannah does feature quite large on this particular show, but no, this inflatable friend that I have, I picked up at one of the stands at Pig and Poultry. I did it a couple of years ago, came back with some squishy pigs for. For the girls.

I did get told by the wife, you know, don't bring any more rubbish back that we don't particularly need. So obviously didn't heed that advice. Although in my defence, that pig will eventually lose air, so it will deflate and we will be able to get rid.

Oh, I mean, there might be sadness amongst the children, but it's. Yeah, I basically bought something back that is disposable so it won't. Won't clutter up the house too much. But no, there were lots of them.

It's quite funny because if you do pull them along the ground, their trotters do start working. So you just. All these people at Pig and Poultry pulling their newfound inflatable pet pigs behind them. It was. It was quite funny. But yeah, that's.

That's where Hannah and I were last week at the Pig and Poultry Fair in Birmingham and we actually managed to catch several interesting sessions at the Pig Forum Theatre. Just got the Pig and Poultry Fair official guide I know Hannah really enjoyed.

There was one that had Lizzie Wilson from the npa, chief executive of the npa, talking about Pig out book and predictions for the year ahead. She was quite taken with that one. Ahdb. We had a few Mark Hyten and Mandy Nevill talking about protecting pigs and livelihoods.

There was a decent one, actually. And we'll hear from a little bit later, Sean McAuliffe from McAuliffe Farms, an Irish farmer talking about how farmers.

It's great that if farmers can tell their story to make sure that I guess you're owning that. That story about how your. Your food is produced. But it all kicked off with another AHDB session and that was in the realms of exports.

Charlotte: 00:04:58

Now, we have looked at exports quite a few times here on the Ag show and I know that a couple of people you caught up with are very much involved in that.

Producer Martin: 00:05:07

Yes, that's right.

A little later on in the show, we'll be hearing from our very own trade butchery manager, Martin from another mother, Martin Eccles, about how other countries value parts of the carcass much more than we actually do. But first up, it's Essex farmer Fergus Howey, who's done well Exporting to expats.

And given how busy his phone is, it's clear he's a farmer in demand. And he began by telling Hannah a bit more about his business.

Fergus: 00:05:37

Wick's Manor is a family farming business. We're based in Essex, about 220sows. We breed and finish.

Then we've also got value added, where we got processing and a butchery, and we're trying to add value to our pigs to give us a sustainable known value for the product that we produce.

We grow crops, add value to the crops by turning into pig feed, and then add value to the pigs by making the best quality food we can from those animals we've looked after and cared for. And my phone's got enough of my pocket. We're trying to produce out of the pig.

I'm trying to do the shoulder into sausages, belly into streaky bacon, the back into back bacon and the leg into hand. And that way I can wix manify our product and remove it from the commodity markets and have a sustainable known value of that good.

Hannah: 00:06:27

And we're talking about adding value today, and you were on an excellent session talking about export and market development, and you've been exporting for 10 years or so. Could you sort of talk us through how that journey started?

Fergus: 00:06:40

So we were in any businesses, always, always trying to grow your customer base. We got a request to send some samples out to Dubai, which you think is a bit strange. Muslim country, they can't eat that much pork.

But if you go to the supermarkets in Dubai, they have a pork room where they have, like, it looks like a lift.

Press the button, the doors open and you go into a pork and alcohol room, which just for those people who want to consume these things, which shouldn't be commercial consumed in Dubai. And so it worked very well and we picked up really good traction out there.

And they moved us into the whole range of their stores and we thought, where else is there that kind of expat population? Because the expats really miss that traditional British bacon and sausages.

Because we are unique in the UK with the way we make our sausages and the way we produce our bacon. Anywhere else in the world, bacon is streaky bacon, but British bacon is back bacon. And so it's very difficult to get that if you're an expat.

So traditionally produced British bacon sausage work very, very well. So we're thinking, where else is there that kind of marketplace where there's expats?

Where else is there a domestic population which have got disposable income. And so we went to Hong Kong and then that worked for us and our biggest customer ended up being a Hong Kong customer.

And then where else is a very similar market?

Fergus: 00:08:01

And so we now do trade shows every year, either Hong Kong or Singapore, trying to grow that market and also spending time. When we have got a customer to go back and eyeball, you've got to go and spend time. Any customer, you've got to spend time with them.

But particularly in the Far east, is.

Hannah: 00:08:18

Your business sort of quite common? Would there be a lot of people in your position sort of exporting to those sort of markets on your sort of scale?

Or are you quite a, we said risk taker earlier. Would that be sort of in your ethos?

Fergus: 00:08:30

Obviously you have to be a risk taker when you're trying to run your own business. If you go outside your comfort zone, which is what we've done as pig farmers, there is other people who do it quite limited.

Most people on the export markets are trying to get rid of the fifth quarter, whereas we're looking at it, trying to get, trying to create a brand and sell on the quality of the produce. So we're award winning bacon, ham and sausages. We've picked up some great awards to products. Fantastic. But we're trading on quality.

It's what the Spanish do. Spain doubled its pig population in 10 years. Not by selling on I'm the cheapest like Brazil are selling.

I'm the best and I'm a premium and there's a market for that. Britain is well known to be fully traceable, high welfare British pork, Red Tractor accredited.

We've got no horse, no antibiotics in the product that we produce when it's for sale for all pig producers in the uk. But we don't market that.

And we ought to go out there and be more prominent and more proactive because every time we market a pig on an export market, that's one less pig in the uk, there is domestic supply. As you know, all the supermarkets say we're using British Red Tractor. Fantastic.

But if we over supply, it gets downgraded to the same price as an imported product into the uk. So British pigs get downgraded in their value and we need, you know, we want to be producing more pigs and not have them downgraded in value.

We ought to be promoting them as a high welfare, fully traceable red tractor product sold on a premium market into export trade, supporting British pig farmers in the uk.

Hannah: 00:10:05

And I think, final question just we talk about that British brand that kind of position. What's been your experience in working with HDB in your export journey?

Fergus: 00:10:16

HDB has been very supportive. We couldn't do our exports without them.

We could do them, but we wouldn't have the same impact because HDB put together a package which is under a brand Great Britain flag and you'll end up with five or six different exporters, producers, British producers, all there on the, on the England stand. Wales and Scotland have their own because they have their different levy paying boards.

We don't market as Britain as England, so we market under Great British. This was the first year when I went to Singapore a couple of weeks ago, we had a trade show all within one Great British Pavilion.

And there was Scotland, there was Wales and there was AHDB under the Great British flag.

And that worked really, really well because people see that Great British flag and when you think of Britain, you think of bowler hat, suited gentleman with a umbrella that you think tradition, you think trust. And Britain has got, you know, playing cricket, playing the straight game. So we've got a lot of stuff going for us.

We just need to get out in the world market and actually have a product that we try and sell now.

Producer Martin: 00:11:22

Confession time. Charlotte, was that you ringing Fergus mobile in that interview?

Charlotte: 00:11:28

Well, I was trying to get hold of you and Hannah, so, yeah, I think it,.

Producer Martin: 00:11:33

But he, like a pro, just brushed it off. So hats off to Ferguson on that. We'll have more exports chat a little later as we hear from AHDB's trade butchery manager, Martin Eccles.

But before then, we'll be understanding the importance of telling your stories. It's the Ag Show. Thanks very much for sticking with us this week.

I'm producer Martin with Charlotte and of course Hannah, who has been out recording at the recent Pig and Poultry Fair. More from the people that she caught up with in a little while, but it is the time for the news picks. Charlotte, what have you got?

Charlotte: 00:14:16

So I've seen some reports on the BBC that a new daily pill could help people keep the weight off after stopping GLP1 weight loss jabs. Now, GLP1s are certainly something. We have featured quite a a lot on the show, but that's because for the industry they could be quite some big news.

Now, this tablet, and I will probably get the pronunciation horribly wrong, it is called Orphagilpron and it works in a similar way to injections like Wegovy and Manjaro. So they're to reduce appetite and help people feel fuller for longer.

Now, trials are suggesting that people switching from Jabs to the pill kept more than 70% of their weight loss off after a year, compared with much lower levels of those given a placebo. The drugs are already available in the US and could soon be approved in the UK.

It's another big moment for GLP1 medications, which we have previously discussed, not only from a health perspective, but from that food systems one as well.

Our own research has highlighted both challenges and opportunities these drugs create for red meat and dairy, from smaller pools and shifting demand to the role of high quality protein in supporting nutrition for people who are eating less overall. Now, the move from injectable drugs to an oral medication could also be significant.

Now, injections are often intended for the short term use and the delivery method alone puts some people off, whereas if it's moving to a daily pill format, it could be more appealing.

And because this medication is being designed for longer term use, it could mean sustained changes in eating habits over extended periods or possibly even for life. Now, experts are clear that this isn't going to be a quick fix.

It may not appear that quickly on our markets, but obesity is increasingly being treated as a long term condition. They're also warning that despite more palatable delivery methods, there is still going to be a cost attached which could be quite substantial.

So I think this is a case of watching closely to see A whether the drug is approved to use in the UK and then B what the real world uptake is actually going to look like. Either way, the ripple effects are likely to stretch far beyond healthcare, right through the supply chain.

Producer Martin: 00:16:52

Thanks, Charlotte. And from something that's a bit of a watch point at the moment to something that has actually closed.

And that's the planting and variety survey we had Helen plant on earlier in the year, talking about the survey, how it forms that early picture of what the harvest could be like this year. But yeah, the, the survey closed at the end of last week.

So we wait in anticipation of what the results will show and as soon as we get them, I can cast iron guarantee that we will reflect them somehow on the out show, maybe get Helen back on. Right, then, more now from the Pig and Poultry Fair.

And whilst attending one of the sessions that was specifically at the year ahead for pig farmers, we were reminded about the fair dealing obligations regulations that actually came into force last August.

Charlotte: 00:17:47

These regulations are designed to give pig farmers and producers greater certainty over their contracts, which must all meet the new standards by 13 August this year. Here's what the chief executive of the National Pig Association, Lizzie Wilson, had to say.

Lizzie: 00:18:04

We've got this August deadline coming up.

Lizzie: 00:18:06

With regards to contractual practice deadline with fair dealing obligations legislation. So I'd say to producers, ensure that.

Lizzie: 00:18:15

Your processors are contacting you with regards.

Lizzie: 00:18:18

To your contract because it needs to be reviewed and negotiated by that August deadline. And I know that isn't great timing at the moment, but they are legally obliged to do that. And I guess if anyone has any.

Lizzie: 00:18:31

Concerns, especially with regards to contractual practice,.

Lizzie: 00:18:34

There is the agricultural supply chain adjudicator.

Producer Martin: 00:18:36

Someone else who Hannah actually caught up with is the Irish pig farmer Shane McAuliffe. Now Shane's very much of the opinion that all farmers should look for ways to tell their positive stories. And this is his story about how he did it.

Shane: 00:18:51

ion and we have four sites of: 2000

Hannah: 00:19:01

And you've just done a fantastic presentation all about communication and the challenges that the sector faces with engaging with the public. And you've done a huge amount of work in this space. Could you sort of take us on the journey of how you started and what sort of stuff you get up to?

Shane: 00:19:15

I suppose I started really with social media first, just very random things about pig farming and my following grew across the different channels and then I suppose in the last couple of years been taking a bit more seriously, visiting schools, speaking at many different universities to agricultural students. And that has been growing and growing really.

And then last year I started to take it a little bit more seriously and I started making very fine tuned videos.

So like the one that I showed there during the presentation, I'll pick a topic that's kind of maybe some slightly complex, I'll simplify it and I'll condense it into a one minute video for the public. So it's just giving them scientific facts just quite easily in the, in, you know, in a public sort of, in a public sort of language.

Hannah: 00:20:04

And have you found any particular way of communicating lands differently or works particularly well with the public getting your message across?

Shane: 00:20:12

You know, those videos I've been doing have been doing quite well. They've been getting a lot of, you know, interesting interaction. And another thing we did was we set up a website last year.

So if you look up pig farming in Ireland, I think we were one of the first websites to come up. And from that I've had a lot of people contacting me through the contact us section.

There have been TV production companies, there's been other universities that I had never dealt with before. And again, that's just showcasing all about our farm, all about the positives, all about health and welfare, etc. Etc.

And again, it's just something so simple and it's been working very well.

Hannah: 00:20:45

One thing that struck me in your talk was it's not your interview.

One thing that struck me in your talk was it's sort of like the think global, act local kind of mindset because I suppose social media can be quite scary place for a lot of people and to stick your head above parapet can be quite daunting.

Shane: 00:21:01

It is. So, you know, something that I'm really passionate about is working with the local community.

So if you're a farmer or working on a farm, go back to your former school because teachers love having guest speakers in. So whether it's, you know, teenagers or whether it's small children, they love having guest speakers in.

You're talking about what you do, what you're proud to be doing, you're talking about the industry.

And you never know, it might just, especially with teenagers, it might just instill something in them that thinks, oh, I want to find out more about this, I want to go and look at the opportunities I have.

And that's again, I do that with third level students, I bring them out, I speak in their universities and then hopefully in third year one of them might do a pig placement.

And what we see is that when they do a pig placement, they go back looking for work in the pig sector when they graduate and that's a new person into our industry, you know, so it doesn't have to be social media can do local community things. I'm really big on applying for, for awards which are outside the sphere of agriculture business awards.

I found a website here in the UK that lists all the regional and local business awards.

So there's farmers here, farming families that can enter these awards for all these different categories and it's not specific to farming, it's just business. And again, that has a ripple effect and it's promoting the industry in a public area that otherwise wouldn't know much about pig farming.

Hannah: 00:22:23

So your one piece of advice to any farmers wanting to tell their story,.

Shane: 00:22:27

I think start local. If you're not comfortable with social media and filming videos, start local and see how it goes. Visit one of your local schools, visit your Pasco.

And it just has that ripple effect. And if everyone was doing that, if every farmer in different parts of the country were doing that, that has a ripple effect.

Producer Martin: 00:22:48

So Shane there, Charlotte talking about how even going to, you know, a former School to about your role as a farmer.

Just getting that message out, talking to the local communities and that actually ties in with what we've got coming at the start of next month, which is Open farm Sunday on the 7th of June. Just a way of making sure there's that connection.

Charlotte: 00:23:11

Yeah, Shane made some really, really interesting points there and I think even though he is a pig farmer, actually so many of them are applicable to wider agriculture.

Producer Martin: 00:23:20

Back in a movie foreign. It's the Ag Show. We're on the on the home straight now.

I'm producer Martin with Charlotte Fawkes Reese this week and Hannah Clark, who you're about to see very shortly. Again, if you do want to get in touch, then please do email the show agshowhdb.org UK let's wrap up the.

Charlotte: 00:25:14

Show with another look at the world of exports with our trade butchery manager, Martin Eccles. And as if by magic, producer Martin inserts some sort of magical sparkly music here. We can jump back to the Pig and Poultry Fair again.

Hannah: 00:25:32

So I'm here with Martin Eccles, he's fresh off stage.

We're here at the Pig and Poultry Fair in Birmingham today and Martin did an excellent demonstration talking about export and market development and fifth quarter and why that trade is so important. Martin, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about export and the importance of that market.

And you mentioned a few stats on stage earlier that were really interesting. I wonder if you could just talk us through that a bit more.

Butcher Martin: 00:25:54

So what we've done this morning is just try to get some sort of idea or get people to understand the value in some of the lesser known cuts or some of the cuts that we deem as not desirable in the uk, we're talking about fifth quarter products. So we're talking about livers, talking about hearts, esophagus, the trachea, the trotters and things like that.

But it's quite eye opening really, when we start talking about we produce. The forecast is for 10.3 million, 10.4 million pigs this year. So like that. So effectively we're going to get 20,000 tons of pigs deliver.

So if that was to go into the UK market, so we sell approximately a thousand tons into the UK market, it's probably good for pet food. The value is that is approximately 22 per kilo.

If we were to export that out to just say the Philippines, say for instance, we might get between 50, 60p a kilo.

Hannah: 00:26:45

Yeah.

Butcher Martin: 00:26:46

So, you know, it's like two, three times the value. If we can get into that market. So obviously gaining market access is paramount.

Getting stuff into there, we've got access, we can get the livers then that go out to the. I know we did talk about looking at some of the different beasts that we get.

So I know I was one people that somebody put around up when I said what is the most valuable in cost? And it was the aorta. So it's a valve that comes out of the heart. If we catch in this country, it's going into cat three, so into pet food.

So again, 22p a kilo. If we export it out to China, we're getting five pound forty. So it's quite a significant jump in price.

It's only a low volume because you can imagine it's not a big thing, but it's about understanding markets and where we can get some of that value.

Hannah: 00:27:33

And we're exporting a lot of cuts that we as British consumers don't necessarily favour, but in the export market. So China, you talked about those kind of products that they. Over there, they're prized, they're favoured, their value is much greater.

But there's a lot around and you showed some graphics earlier around presentation. So, you know, we think about the important cuts, like stakes in the uk, for example, we love that presentation.

What are the considerations when you're presenting those fifth quarter products to those export markets and those customers that favour it?

Butcher Martin: 00:28:08

Imagine going into a retail environment in the uk, depending which one you shop at. And if you see a stake in a box, it screams premium straight away. I think it must be good because it's in a box, this line of it.

If you go into a retail outlet in, we'll send down to Hong Kong or into China, you will see pig's trotters, pig's ears and they will be boxed up in the same as we expect to buy a quarter stake.

And it's about understanding that, you know, just because we don't see it as a value, a valuable product, something like that, you go to a different culture and things like that there. And pig stratas, pig's ears, snout, livers, there's that actual intestines and I don't know, you saw that.

We did show some, some images of hot counters in China. So imagine going into a high. A retail house in the.

In the uk, I'm not going to name them, but on the hot counter you may get chicken wings, you may get ham hocks, you get sausage rolls. In some areas of China you will get a pig snout, ears, livers and Things like that. And that's a hot counter.

So when people go in, buy a hot snack and stuff like that, and that's what you buy.

When we go to these trade fairs around the world, when we do expeditions, trade fairs, we go out to these places, you start to understand different, different cultures. And just because we don't deem it as a high end product in the UK doesn't mean that it's not deemed as a high end product in a different country.

So you start to understand different cultures, what they want, the way that they prefer food, you know, it'd be long and slow and then quite obviously a lot of spice. If you went into Chengdao, as we talked about, is a city in China which is the Sichuan province and you will get intestines in a hot chili sauce.

Hannah: 00:29:57

Yeah, lovely.

Butcher Martin: 00:30:00

But that's what we want.

And we also had a producer on this morning who talked about he produces sausages and the way that his business has developed is that they now use like, it's basically a seaweed that is prepared now and he goes into a sausage skin. So he's producing his sausages now using that method. So which the, the, the outcome of that is we have more intestines to sell.

So we need to expand these markets out because most major, super, major sausage producers will use that method for efficiencies. So it then creates a problem that's with more intestines to sell. So where do we sell them? That's when we start looking at different markets.

Producer Martin: 00:30:46

Well, Charlotte, hopefully our dear listener or dear viewer will not know the lengths that we have gone to to get this episode over the line. What hopefully has come across as a very polished production.

We have got the mother of all outtake reels, I think, in recording this episode this week. But we got there.

Charlotte: 00:31:13

I think it just shows how much Hannah keeps, keeps us on the straight and narrow, doesn't it? When she's not here goes. Goes to absolute carnage.

Producer Martin: 00:31:21

Well, indeedy. So we can only have our fingers crossed that she's. She's back with you.

And I can go to the background because I don't know, you know, I've stepped up, I, I've taken Hannah's role talking to you and our inflatable pig has been producing us. So actually I'm blaming the inflatable pig for the message in the behind the scenes of this show. Must do better. Mr. Pig,.

Charlotte: 00:31:50

It was certainly great hearing all the really interesting people that you spoke to at Pig and Poultry. But, yeah, that's all we've got time for this week, please do make sure that you are subscribed to us if you aren't already.

It just means that you'll get notified when new episodes drop on every Wednesday. And feel free to reach out either via email and that's agshowdb.orguk or on any of our social channels. We love to hear from you.

Reviews, comments, questions, anything. We love it.

Producer Martin: 00:32:22

So just one thing left for us all to do and that's to say goodbye. Cheerio.

Charlotte: 00:32:26

Bye.