 It is now my great pleasure to introduce our next speaker and that is Darren Thomas, the Chief Executive Officer of Thomas Foods International. Thanks very much Isabel, our guests from overseas, the Premier, all of our distinguished guests and Isabel you did such a great job introducing everyone. At the start I'd like to welcome you. Agtech is something I'm actually quite interested in personally but also how technology is affecting our business now. I will be talking a little bit about the project that Isabel discussed at the end of it but what I thought I'd do today is also just reflect on the innovation that's actually affecting our business because yes everyone wants to hear about and look at exciting robots and what's happening in the food processing plant but probably what's had the biggest impact on our business is actually the supply chain or the innovation supply chain as we said earlier. So I'm going to look at that and then come back to sort of what's happening at the Murray Bridge project. You'll have to excuse my voice, too many flights and too many talks of late but we'll because it really has been a business that's like a global business. You are literally 24 seven and the impacts that it's had on our decision making as a company and why we've done what we've done since the 90s has really been an outcome of this but I wanted to introduce a theory or an actual outcome that many of you would be aware of particularly the people that are surrounding the room here of convergence. Now you'll see our old friend up there, Maxwell Smart, the old shoe phone and the things that we saw in some of the things, the old TV, the gramophone but really this convergence of technologies is really what's driven or being a lot of the foundation of technology as I'm standing here now and Apple Watch someone's just text me, you're constantly available but this convergence of technology is actually allowed us as a society to advance. Now there's plenty of benefits of that but as I said, you really live in a 24 seven world and the demands of that so I just thought I'd have a really, really quick look at the supply chain and how that is really specific to our business. If I look here, one of the things that Australia was as well known for is our national livestock event identification scheme where all of our cattle are now basically identified so we can give whole life traceability. Now the whole reason for wanting to obviously optimise our supply chain is it comes back to productivity and profits now. We all enjoy a wonderful life here in Australia, we really do but it's a very high cost place to do business and I can make some comparisons in that with what we operate our businesses in other parts of the world but if I look at the supply chain and agriculture it's changed dramatically in the last 30 years. How we sell livestock, obviously today animal welfare standards are important so we've seen the advent of different forms of selling livestock rather than just the normal traditional saliards system, auctions plus for example, I mean they really were pioneers in this area, it started some 30 years ago when we first sold, I remember when I started in the industry it was a very manual system all in my father coming from a livestock family, the trip down to Narra court then stopping six times on the way home to the telephone box or if there's any agents in the room, countless hours ringing your clients, now every bit of data is just readily available, you know livestock market reporting at the end of the night so it's really changed and sped up the process. Now there's lots of great examples of some of these emerging technologies around the room, one of the ones that we use in some of our farms has been AgriWeb and that's really allowed us to communicate now, if you talked to a few of my farm managers they might not be so, whilst they really loved and embraced it, I found a little area in there where we can actually shoot off some emails and tasks so they sort of got their work cut out, they tried to hide that one from me, but the information, just driving around the paddock, find out what's going, the history, livestock, you know I'm about to make decisions, I can be sitting overseas with a customer now and talking all about our great animal welfare traceability standards and that so it's really shaped the way we as a company have operated and continue to operate and every step of that supply chain, even the way we market our food now, because we've got such wonderful products here in Australia, but we're still only very small on the scale, we may be a large exporter, but we're still small in the scale, we can really as a country only feed about 60 million people, so we can look after ourselves and a few others, so the old economics of that is you want to keep, you know, concentrate on premiumisation of your products, so you know through this we've been able to look at, you know, just selling our products differently, but the technology that we're able to now and tell that message is incredible, it's shaping the way the whole time, everyone through social media has an opinion, you know, they don't like something or there's an article written, you know, straight away there's direct feedback. One of the really exciting things that I've seen and we just completed last year was blockchain and I won't go into we don't have the time today, but you know this traceability thing is one of the key things, so not only has Australia a wonderful product, but we've got some competitors, if anyone goes to Argentina or Uruguay, you know, there's some magnificent products coming out of there, but this whole theme of traceability is amazing, so we were one of the first people to actually track and I don't like really the word paddock to plate, but our products right through the system, right through the retail custom and I can tell you I spend basically half of my life out there somewhere in some retail environment globally and our customers today in particular younger generation really want to know, but it also gives us the advantage of our province, which is incredibly important, one of Australia's main mainstays, so when when some of the Asian markets in particular really protecting that IP in provenance is is incredibly important. Now, most of you would know these two people, if you don't Jack Maher and Jeff Bezos, they've single-handedly had some of the biggest impacts on business in general, but they're impacting my business, so if I look at technology whilst it is obviously a huge advantage to our business, but it's also driving our thoughts and our future plans, we've got to be aware what's happening and I'll talk at that from a customer base and and that's really at the end of the day because my customers ultimately for the people in primary production know your customers, okay. I really sit across the middle, I mean we've had to sort of optimise the supply chain, change the way we're doing it, we're doing more direct business with customers, but these two gentlemen and their companies coupled with different sorts of social media, I mean they've changed the way retail is operating, so the biggest part of our business is retail globally and here also in our domestic market, but I just want to show you a short little video of what's happening now and that's really determines how I've got to now react as a company because if this is what my customers are doing, I've got to make sure my business stays relevant in that supply chain. Four years ago, we started to wonder, what would shopping look like if you could walk into a store, grab what you want and just go? What if we could weave the most advanced machine learning, computer vision and AI into the very fabric of a store so you never have to wait in line? No lines, no checkouts, no registers. Welcome to Amazon Go. Use the Amazon Go app to enter, then put away your phone and start shopping. It's really that simple. Take whatever you like. Anything you pick up is automatically added to your virtual cart. If you change your mind about that cupcake, just put it back. Our technology will update your virtual cart automatically. So how does it work? We used computer vision, deep learning algorithms at sensor fusion, much like you'd find in self driving cars. We call it just walk out technology. Once you've got everything you want, you can just go. When you leave, our just walk out technology adds up your virtual cart and charges your Amazon account. Your receipt is sent straight to the app and you can keep going. Amazon Go. No lines, no checkout, no checkouts. Seriously. So you can see, and you know, a previous keynote spoke of some of these technologies, how they're now being adopted into the wider market. And you know, we weren't gone about Amazon, but as a customer of ours, it's really shaping the way that we have to do business in our Philadelphia processing plant. You know, we have a huge Amazon distribution store down about a mile away from where we are. You know, we've got to our order, you know, Amazon Prime customers, if they want a steak or a child, but whatever it might be, we've got two hours to produce it. So we've got to shape our business around it. And convenience, technology has allowed people to become, I like to say, sometimes more impatient. We want everything tomorrow. You've seen things, so that led us down to our sort of consumer range, our Thomas Farms kitchen, which is all designed about convenience. Now, in Australia, one of the biggest challenges we have, obviously, is this big country with not a lot of people and the logistics of getting products around is incredibly challenging, I'll say, and we did have a large international come to Australia and decide, no, well, the logistics challenge was too much for them. So they decided to exit. But that thing of convenience, so today, and there still is people wanting to shop. So again, that Amazon and Whole Foods type in the US, there's still people wanting the bricks and mortar shopping, but you've got to have that convenience range. We saw the advent of Uber Eats, another sort of coming from technology and people take away, you know, getting out of home. So when I saw one of the biggest brands in the world decided, well, we have to be part of this, you know, at some momentum shift. So again, here I am, I'm a meat processor. I've got to remain relevant. I can't ignore this. If I think I'm just going to process an animal, put it in a box and just forget it, you know, we're not going to be here in two years' time. So I've got to be thinking the whole time, how do we stay relevant to our customer? So we're one of the first, well, the first company to put fresh meat on Uber Eats. So you can actually, now, we've completed that trial here, and it's really exciting. So we'll be looking to roll that out. But again, trying to give that bit of, I guess, halfway point between maybe the modern take or the traditional take away and actually still cooking a home cooked meal. And we're seeing those sort of sales, you know, go through the roof. But I'm even not that against when we look at innovation in food or in our thing is looking at some of the plant based opportunities. Alternative meat, whatever you want to go. So for me, I get asked a lot that, you know, people thinking are you threatened by this? Is this going to take? No, for me, I mean, as a capitalist, I think it's a great opportunity for more sales. This is a company we developed in the EU or with in the Netherlands. And, you know, these sales are growing out still very small, but globally. So we've got to constantly be trying to innovate and using the technology. And it's interesting, as I move on to the next part about the food processing, certainly artificial intelligence, machine learning, machine vision, all those things you saw even in Amazon go are going to play a huge role in our business. We're just on the cusp in the meat processing sector. I think of a huge productivity step or huge gain. Now, it's been around, I've been involved in a trial program for nearly 20 years. And we're just starting to see some of these technologies. And the great thing is they're going to all be able to integrate backwards into many of the suppliers that are around the room here and also forwards. But I guess I can't go past talking about the issue we went through a couple of years ago, but the exciting opportunity that provided us. So I'll just show you a quick little video for those who may not be aware of what happened to us in two years ago, but the exciting times that we've got ahead of us in some of that technology that will be involved. An inferno rips through the Murray Bridge meatworks. 1,400 workers left in limbo. The abattoir fires send shockwaves through Murray Bridge. Almost 24 hours on firefighters are still trying to extinguish the blades. Firefighters will remain here into tomorrow. Murray Bridge communities rallying around those affected. Of course, the biggest concern is the abattoir's massive workforce and their future. My main concern of focus is the welfare and well-being of our staff. Company boss Darren Thomas says the plant will be rebuilt, but how long that takes is anyone's guess. We're committed we will be rebuilding. Today I can confidently say that there's been 340 positions created here with a second shift at Lobeth or already we've placed a lot of these people in employment and that's only a bit over two weeks ago. I think that's an extraordinary effort and a great effort by many people involved. We're here to support our employees and we know that this is going to be a monumental task. Today we instigate a major employment campaign in Tamworth for local residents and that's in order for us to be able to continue to meet our ongoing custom requirements but also support the livestock of the region. Four months have gone by very quickly so we are trying to get things up and back as quickly as possible. The well-being of our people as I said on the doorstep today one is my most important goal still is today. The support of Murray Bridge community at the moment has been outstanding and probably the darkest hour for a while so I would like to say a big thank you certainly has made our job easier we're very focused on returning Murray Bridge back to the jewel in the crown it was. The rebuild here at Thomas Foods Factory maybe months from starting but Australia's third biggest meat processor has its sights firmly set on the future. I guess what excites us is the future. It's a little unclear still at the moment but one thing I know and all we can do as our past history and what we've done in the last 20 years and I'm very excited about what I see in the future. We are certainly committed to rebuild and whatever we do will be bigger better and stronger for that. So that day's come I can assure you on the morning of the fire the next day it was probably a little unclear but we had that commitment and out of all that challenge that we faced it's given us one of the most amazing opportunities to build something quite unique. No one is building processing plants from scratch in the world anywhere now the moldy species. I'm going to be able to just show you a couple of short videos before we have to wind up this morning. But in food processing as I said I think we're just on the cusp we've been a very traditional labour intensive industry which will still always require skilled labour but some of the imaging that we're able to get the speeds of production that we need to operate so whilst this will just be a bit of a starting point I'm going to show you a quick fly over and we are literally ready to start announcing tenders and so on and then I'm going to actually finish with a short video that will show you some of the equipment that will be going in you'll notice there is a lack of people but ten years ago this would have been done with many hands and in any agricultural business obviously finding labour is extremely challenging so I'll just show you these couple of quick videos and then I'll be able to have answers and questions later on today. So there's a quick look on the outside and you know it has only been two years ago since we've been working on this but to take a look at what we're going to be seeing in the inside of the plant Scott Automation have worked with our industry for as I said nearly nearly two decades and some of the robotics and co-botics is quite exciting for what we're doing you know animal welfare a lot of just food safety so what I'll show you here is just a little bit of a snapshot of bits and pieces of the technology that have just been implemented in other plants but no one's actually put it all together so it's something we're quite excited about. We're really excited about the future. I also want to I guess now put the challenge back to not only the Australian government but our government. I'm a big fan of the Israeli model and the way they're world class the way they've got support you see it's the whole system it's just not about governments giving handouts it's also about the private sector taking risk and backing our entrepreneurs. South Australia has a great history of entrepreneurship here and particularly in the agriculture sector so I'm incredibly excited about it. I thank the government for taking the league and putting this inaugural conference on and I wish you I hope you have an amazing day because there's some fantastic entrepreneurs in the room and thanks for having me.