Agribusiness buzz in brief

Although Daou wines currently sell almost entirely within the US market, Treasury hopes to piggyback on the strength of its Penfolds distribution network to luxury markets worldwide.

The US winemaker established in the vineyard and olive grove blanketed Paso Robles area just 15 years ago, but has become one of America's fastest growing luxury labels.

It was started by successful technology sector siblings, Daniel and Georges Daou, who grew up in France, moving to the US to study and work, then trying their hand in the wine industry.

Treasury has been a big player in the Californian industry since its former parent, Fosters Brewing, bought the Berringer Wine Estates business for almost $3 billion in 2000 as part of its agenda to build a global wine business which was subsequently spun out as a standalone operation in 2011.

A cohort of 15 young innovators and trailblazers from the grape and wine sector have graduated from the industry's intensive five-month leadership development program Future Leaders.

This 15-year-old program, co-ordinated and funded by Wine Australia and backed by Australian Grape and Wine, aims to foster individual talents and enhance leadership skills.

As part of the program, participants drew upon their experience to create responses to the sector's immediate and future challenges.

Their thought pieces have been compiled into the book Thought Leadership volume 4, which includes views on how the sector should respond to climate change; long-term sustainability; marketing; exports, business structures, and market diversification.

The Australian Agricultural Company's board is in the spotlight prior to next week's half year results report, with revelations its directors apparently spent about $3 million a year insuring themselves and senior management against potential liability claims against their actions.

That compared with less than $500,000 spent in 2020 insuring the high-end beef producer and marketing business' pastoral station assets.

The Australian Financial Review noted the insurance bill illustrated the rocketing cost of directors' insurance, but also raised questions about whether Brisbane-based AACo had over-insured its board with protection worth up to $170m.

Additionally, AACo apparently spent about $460,000 on $52.3m of insurance coverage for its mothballed Livingstone abattoir south of Darwin.

Meanwhile, media reports also claimed AACo management was handling allegations of bullying and intimidation by an "alpha group" on one of its northern cattle stations, and reports of specific workplace safety incidents on a property, which the company declined to confirm or deny.

Queensland sugar cane processor and marketer, Wilmar, has swapped diesel for recycled hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) in a trial aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in its locomotive fleet.

The renewable diesel trial is a first for the Australian sugar industry and a key initiative in Wilmar Sugar and Renewables' pathway to net zero emissions by 2050.

The company will running its newest loco on HVO for four weeks to compare performance and greenhouse gas emissions against diesel fuel and will also trial HVO in one of its farm tractors.

Trials are being run from Wilmar's Victoria Mill in the Herbert region.

The diesel substitute reduces emissions by 99 per cent.

Nutrien Ag Solutions has partnered with universities across Australia to encourage more people to consider a career in agriculture.

The Nutrien Harvesting the Future Scholarship program will launch in 2024, offering four scholarships with a total investment of around $80,000 for the next few years.

In addition to providing financial assistance, the scholarships will allow recipients to be mentored by some of the farm services company's business leaders for the duration of their studies.

The Nutrien Harvesting the Future Scholarship is open to students at the University of Western Australia, Charles Sturt University and the University of New England in NSW and Victoria's Deakin University.

Nutrien Ag Solutions' senior human resources director, Shelley Nolan, said the company was focused on taking a skills-based approach to building the agricultural workforce.

"For every one graduate with an agricultural degree, there are six job vacancies."

The ownership fate of popular frozen food business, Sara Lee, is likely to be known by early next year.

The NSW Central Coast-based dessert and baking products business, which went into voluntary liquidation last month, has been well known to Australian consumers since 1971.

It has apparently attracted about 40 inquiries from potential buyers, including local and overseas food manufacturers and private equity investors.

Sale advisor, FTI Consulting, would like non-binding indicative offers submitted by early December.

Sara Lee Australia has been owned by New Zealand private equity firm, South Island Office, for two years, and prior to that was part of the McCain Foods stable.

Former Murray Goulburn dairy co-operative chief executive officer, Ari Mervis, has taken over as chairman of Myer retail business.

Mr Mervis who spent most of his career in the brewing sector, joined the struggling milk processing giant in early 2017 after the hasty departure of Gary Helou the previous year and a crash in farmgate prices.

He was employed to turn the big farmer-owned company around, but eventually led it to a $1.3 billion sale to Canada's Saputo in 2018.

Prior to joining the dairy industry, Mr Mervis was also responsible for the acquisition and integration of Carlton and United Breweries by SABMiller, and then between 2018 and 2020 chaired the board of Accolade Wines.

The forestry sector is dismayed with the federal government's Sustainable Finance Strategy consultation paper, noting it does not focus on the investment benefit nature-based solutions deliver to cutting greenhouse gas emissions while also building biodiverse ecosystems.

The government strategy aims to help companies, investors and the community make the most of the energy and net zero transformation, acknowledging Australia's net zero ambition required significant private and public investment.

However, the Australian Forest Products Association said the Albanese Government was still asking what other key near-term opportunities might help Australia be a global leader in sustainable finance and global climate mitigation.

The answer, said acting chief executive officer, Natasa Sikman, was backing renewable forestry and forest products.

"The government made clear it needs to take a greater role to help industry meet Australia's ambitious net zero by 2050 target, but the forest products sector already makes a major nature-based contribution and can do more with the right policy," she said.

"The independent review of Australian Carbon Credit Units confirmed photosynthesis is the only pathway known to science with immediate capacity to remove carbon from the atmosphere at scale."

Australian-owned producer of coconut husk-based cocopeat, Ecomix Australia, is capitalising on what it sees as unprecedented global demand for the moisture retentive plant rootbed medium, particularly from a booming soft fruit industry.

Ecomix Australia is one of the supply partners under the umbrella of ProdOz International, with almost two thirds of the Australian market for the growing media and crop solutions to the soft fruit, vegetable, medicinal cannabis, and propagation.

Ecomix Australia is one of the few Indian cocopeat manufacturers to wholly control its own supply chain.

It makes the growing media in southern India, exporting primarily to Australia, the United Kingdom, the US and New Zealand, but also South Korea, China, and European nursery sectors.

As part of its expansion push, Ecomix will exhibit for the first time at premier upcoming fresh produce trade shows - the Morocco Berry Conference this month and Fruit Logistica in Berlin in February.

Ecomix Australia managing director and former automotive and aero-space engineering and product development specialist, Martin Vadakekuttu, said the 12-year-old firm was making use of a unique manufacturing processes and supply chain control to ensure stable supplies and prices around the world.

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