AACo’s big brand push

The signs were already there, particularly in AACo's reporting of its first-half results in September. The branded beef division was the only area to increase revenue in a report otherwise splashed with $31.6 million of red ink.

Some of the loss was driven by perturbations in the live export trade with Indonesia, but drought and reduced margins on commodity beef contributed.

Mr Strong will be charged with lessening AACo's vulnerability to these risks, and expanding its potential for growth by strengthening the company's vertical integration.

Mr Strong is a familiar figure in the Australian beef industry. He has managed the Meat Standards Australia program, represented Meat and Livestock Australia in Europe, and was head of market development at Pfizer Animal Genetics for eight years.

In late 2012, Mr Strong joined AACo as the company's marketing general manager.

On Friday, AACo chairman Don McGauchie announced that Mr Strong had come out in front of an international search to become the chief executive of Australia's oldest, largest cattle company.

Mr Strong's balance of Australian and international experience are the right attributes for the company at this point in its development, Mr McGauchie said.

Mr Strong said under his management, AACo will double-down on its successful branded beef strategy.

The company has four Wagyu-based brands, and separate grass- and grain-fed brands. Late last year, Wagyu genetics were involved in about a quarter of AACo's beef sales, particularly its expanding presence in Asia.

To date, the emphasis has been on selling low-volumes of high-value product. Mr Strong said the company will now begin to also push higher volumes of lower value branded product.

The ratios of AACo's involvement in branded beef, commodity beef and live export will change as a result, "but it's important that people don't see this as taking from one division to grow the other", Mr Strong said.

"This is about leveraging off our fundamental business, and improving and growing that while getting more business growth from branded beef.

"Definitely the ratios will change. There has been a speed up of that change over the past 12 months, and that will increase."

The company's investment in a beef processing facility near Darwin, due to come online late this year, will also expand AACo's involvement in commodity beef.

Mr McGauchie said the economics of a resurgent live cattle trade had been factored into AACo's investment in the processing facility.

Jason Strong replaces AACo's interim CEO, its chief financial officer, Craig White, who took over the seat vacated by David Farley.