APAL Forum 2021 – Grow Beyond

Bernard Salt is widely regarded as one of Australia’s leading social commentators by business, the media and the broader community.

Bernard heads The Demographics Group which provides advice on demographic, consumer and social trends for business.

Prior to that Bernard founded KPMG Demographics.

He writes two weekly columns for The Australian newspaper.

In conjunction with KPMG Australia he hosts a top-rated podcast called “What Happens Next” which discusses rising trends and important business issues.

Bernard is one of the most in-demand speakers on the Australian corporate speaking circuit.

He is well known to the wider community for his penchant for identifying and tagging new tribes and social behaviours such as the ‘Seachange Shift’, the ‘Man Drought’, ‘PUMCINS’ (pronounced pumkins) and the ‘Goats Cheese Curtain’.

He is perhaps best known for popularising the phrase “smashed avocado” globally.

Bernard was awarded the Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2017 Australia Day honours.

Jeremy has over 25 years of corporate and government relations experience.

He is currently working as head of government relations and advocacy for APAL. Previous roles include director of external affairs at Foster’s, head of asia-pacific corporate relations for Visa, based in Singapore; and head of corporate relations and government relations for St.George Bank.

He has also worked extensively in government including roles as industry and science advisor to the Federal Minister; lands advisor to the NSW Minister; and research officer to the NSW Deputy Premier. His first role was in the NSW Cabinet Office working on Federal / State relations.

Reporting to the Board of Apple and Pear Australia, Philip has ultimate accountability for the strategy, direction, governance, and performance of APAL and its subsidiaries. As CEO, Phil has constitutional responsibility to APAL’s members and a broader industry responsibility to all Australian apple and pear growers.

Philip is a Director of Pink Lady Australia, a Director of Pink Lady Development, a Director of Coregeo Limited (UK), and a member of the Sakata/Coregeo joint venture Strategic Investment Group. Philip brings a strong commercial understanding and growing background to APAL.

He is familiar with the apple and pear industry, as both an APAL Director and an industry member. He comes from a growing family and knows the challenges and opportunities of the industry.

Philip has 18 years’ experience in a fifth-generation integrated fruit business with responsibility from orchard quality to export sales and marketing.

Philip has worked in marketing with Pacific Brands Food Group and Nestlé Dairy Products, managing a number of iconic Australian brands. More recently, he was Managing Director of his family business, Turnbull Estate Pty Ltd, an online gift retail and real estate gifting solutions business.

Philip became the APAL Director for pears in 2006, Independent Director for APAL in 2015 and APAL CEO in 2016.

For 25 years James was a Partner of Ferrier Hodgson, the firm’s National Retail Practice Leader and ultimately Chairman of Partners. In June 2019, Ferrier Hodgson merged with KPMG in Australia to become one of Australia’s largest restructuring practices.

James is now the Leader of KPMG Australia’s National Restructuring Practice and in 2020 became a member of KPMG’s National Board.

James has practised in the field of corporate restructuring and strategic consulting for over 35 years. James has a reputation as one of Australia’s leading corporate doctors with a strong specialisation in retail and consumer brands. James is an adviser to organisations undergoing disruptive change or seeking financial restructuring advice.

James is high regarded as a key advisor to the retail industry. He is a frequent public speaker and commentator on consumer behaviour and changing retail models, having travelled extensively overseas with Westfield, studying international retail business models and global trends.

James has dealt with some of Australia’s biggest restructures and business transformations representing over $8 billion of retail sales in Australia, New Zealand and ASEAN.

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Tristan is an ex-retailer, having previously held senior positions with Sainsbury’s (UK) and Coles supermarkets, and is now a management consultant providing advice and support along the grocery value chain, from major retailers through to manufacturers and primary producers. He has a focus upon fresh foods and was the Group Merchandise Manager, Fresh Produce, at Coles Supermarkets (2005-09).

Tristan has his own consulting business, Kitchener Partners Pty Ltd, focused upon providing strategic and advisory support. Increasingly Tristan assists businesses understand the implications of the changing retail and consumer environment, and helps identify solutions to key business challenges.

Tristan is a strong advocate for supply chain members collaborating more closely to better understand and meet the needs of the consumer. He believes that this can be most effectively achieved by transferring learning from other markets and sectors.

Tristan is a regular speaker at industry conferences, and appears as a sector expert in shows such as Switzer Daily on Sky TV. He has worked with a range of businesses including major and independent retailers, manufactures, private equity firms, state and federal government and other SMEs. Tristan’s formal qualifications include a MBA, MPhil Horticulture Management and BSc (Hons) Biological Sciences.

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Dr Andreas is Managing Director for Quality Associates and CEO of QATraining (RTO 41341).

Andreas has worked in the fresh produce and food industries for over 30 years, having held senior technical management roles with Australian (Coles) and UK (Marks & Spencer) retailers.

Quality Associates provides a wide range of quality and food safety services to these sectors including product quality investigations and monitoring, food safety culture development, food safety systems (incl. HACCP, TACCP, VACCP), supply chain & internal audits, product recall management, product specification management & legal compliance of food labels and factory design.

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Andrew is APAL’s Head of Group Quality, Innovation and Commercialisation Regional Manager Australia and New Zealand.

Andrew has accountability for the quality, food safety, and innovation of Pink Lady® apples across 13 growing countries.

Andrew is the Commercialisation Manager for new pear varieties ANP-0131 (Rico®) and ANP-0118 (Lanya®),

Andrew leads domestic innovation programmes to increase consumption, in close connection with the major retailers.

Andrew joined APAL in 2016 and brings 17 years of experience as a fruit technical professional across global production and supply chains of apples and pears, avocado, kiwifruit, grapes, and citrus.

Andrew holds a Masters of Science degree in Plant Physiology, specialising in avocado production, complementing a B.Sc in Plant Science.

Andrew is well known in the Australian fruit industries, having worked as Product Technologist (Apples) for Coles supermarkets.

Reporting to the CEO, Justin is responsible for leading the industry services team, which is APAL’s key conduit to industry, covering growers, packers, marketers, state associations, and other regional stakeholders. A key deliverable in this area is the recognised Future Orchards program, a 10-year program that delivers in orchard education and best practice transfer to industry.

In addition, Justin has direct responsibility to deliver the newly created Export Readiness program, a key project to reinvigorate Australia’s approach to exporting Apples and Pears back to the 30% of industry volume it once achieved from current lows of 2–3%. This program will employ regional officers who will work closely with growers and packers to ensure continuous improvement in meeting export protocols, as well as utilising the international Pink Lady network to connect and educate overseas buyers with the right Australian exporters. With over a decade of experience in commercial operations management and consulting across both FMCG and retail, Justin brings invaluable business acumen to this position and will play a key role in accelerating our export plans for both apples and pears, and lifting overall Industry profitability.

Andrew is responsible for APAL’s domestic and global commercial interests. The UK-based and wholly owned subsidiary Coregeo Limited UK reports to Andrew, and he is a Director of Coregeo, the joint venture Pink Lady Development, and is a member of the Sakata/Coregeo joint venture Strategic Investment Group. Andrew will also sit on the Strategic Marketing Panel to be inducted this year by APAL in conjunction with Hort Innovation. Andrew also chairs the Pink Lady® Global Steerco. Andrew joined APAL in 2017.

Prior to joining, Andrew was General Manager of Group Procurement and Shared Services at Murray Goulburn. In conjunction with this role, Andrew was also acting CEO China in 2015 for twelve months and was a member of the Executive Leadership Team. Other previous roles relevant to this project were CEO Asia for Detpak Packaging (based in Singapore) with six Asian countries reporting to him, Executive Director National Foods Asia (based in Singapore) and Managing Director of a youth Advertising and PR agency based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Andrew also working with Japanese Trading firm Mitsui and Co and was a Management Consultant focused on performance and strategy, most notably with Ernst & Young.

Robert joined KPMG in February 2017, and was appointed to lead the Consumer and Retail (C&R) Sector in 2020. C&R includes retail, food and beverage and agribusiness. He is also leader of the Operations Advisory team in Melbourne who work across multiple disciplines including financial services, supply chain, procurement and defence.

Robert works across agribusiness and food supply chain to help businesses build profit and growth, while helping to solve complex problems and form new ideas. Robert works with a team of food and agribusiness specialists on projects across management consulting, risk, deals advisory support and enterprise.

Robert launched Talking 2030 in March 2018, with the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull – a thought leadership paper written for the National Farmers Federation (NFF) – the paper was designed to ensure that the key emerging issues and trends in food and agriculture were considered by NFF stakeholders when they developed the policy roadmap for 2030.

Robert led the discussion regarding natural capital/eco-systems services A Return on Nature and fresh food exports via air freight including the design of an integrated fresh food hub as part of the new Western Sydney Airport precinct.

Mark was a career special forces officer in charge of 30 elite soldiers,  his role was to lead combat missions deep behind enemy lines. Mark has completed 10 tours of duty to Afghanistan, Iraq, East Timor, Lebanon, and the Solomon Islands.

Mark’s successful transition from the Army led him to a high-profile business career. He graduated with an MBA from the Wharton School of  Business – and joined McKinsey & Company. Mark was listed in Wharton’s prestigious 40 under 40 awards for business excellence. He is the founder and CEO of a tough-luxury brand, Kill Kapture.

Mark’s best-selling memoir: Survivor: Life in the SAS, shot to #1 on four charts in Amazon, including the prestigious ‘Movers and Shakers list.

Matthew Pryor is co-founder of Tenacious Ventures and a Partner at AgThentic. He was previously co-founder of Observant, an Australian agtech pioneer acquired by Jain Irrigation in February 2017. He was the founding chair of Rocket Seeder, a food & ag innovation accelerator, is currently chair of the Australian Government Agriculture 4.0 Task Force and is passionate about promoting Australian agri-food innovation globally.

Hunter Jay is the co-founder and CEO of Ripe Robotics, a startup automating the harvesting of apples, oranges, and stone fruit. Hunter has a varied and technical background, with experience as a software engineer focused on artificial intelligence.

Dr Chao Chen received Master and Ph.D. degrees in Robotics at McGill University in 2002 and 2006, respectively. He was a Postdoc Fellow at University of Toronto from 2006 to 2007. Dr Chen joined Monash University in 2007 and established the Laboratory of Motion Generation and Analysis, with the goal to improve the quality of life of people by robotic technology. From 2018, Dr Chen also holds a position of Adjunct Associate Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research has been driving industry innovation in the areas of agricultural robotics and field robotics. Dr Chen led his team to develop Monash Apple Retrieving System (MARS) and conducted successful field tests in Fankhauser Apples in 2021.

Dr. Steven Scheding is an internationally recognised robotics and automation professional with a reputation for leading the development of novel technology that solves difficult business needs in challenging environments. Steve has almost two decades of experience leading multidisciplinary teams and multi-institutional partnerships in domains that demand novel, robust and cost-effective solutions, including 5 years as the director of the Rio Tinto Centre for Mining Automation. In his current role, Dr Scheding co-founded Green Atlas to automate the care of every fruit on every tree on the planet, through AI and robotics.

Craig Kahlke has been an Area Extension Specialist for the CCE-Lake Ontario Fruit Program for the past fourteen years. He specialises in Fruit Quality Management, which expands his interests to include applied research in the myriad of factors that can affect final fruit quality. Craig’s primary responsibilities include harvest maturity testing of apples, postharvest storage and technology of tree fruit/berries, along with food safety training. Craig is also the team leader, supervising the three other specialists, one technician and one part-time admin person across the five-county team.

Dr Ian Goodwin is the Research Leader Crop Physiology in Agriculture Victoria.

Ian has more than 35 years’ experience in horticulture research and innovation with a focus on intensive production systems, crop water requirements and climate challenges.

In recent years, Ian established the experimental pear orchard and the Sundial orchard at the Tatura SmartFarm to investigate the effects of tree density, training system, row orientation, rootstocks, cultivar and irrigation on yield, quality and labour efficiency.

These experimental orchards have provided a resource to study sun damage thresholds, colour development, tree physiology (e.g. photoinhibition, transpiration), crop regulation, water relations and root extent.

Dr Alessio Scalisi is a Senior Technical Officer at the Tatura SmartFarm, Agriculture Victoria. Alessio works to develop smart tools for the Tatura Centre and to implement a network of sensors that relies on the integration of contact, proximal and remote technologies for the automation of orchard practices and estimation of plant physiological responses. Alessio aims to support fruit growers to achieve the best yield and quality standards by integrating Ag Tech in pre- and post-harvest operations. Alessio holds an International Master in Horticultural Science and a PhD in Agricultural, Environmental and Forest Sciences.

Dave is currently Nufarm’s Regulatory Affairs Lead for Australia and New Zealand. Originally from Wycheproof in North Western Victoria, Dave has been a member of the National Working Party for Pesticide Application (NWPPA) since its inception in March 2010 and has also worked in State and Federal government.

Jenna Garwood joined the National Residue Survey in November 2018, bringing with her significant experience in agvet chemical regulatory policy, as well as agricultural chemical stewardship. Previously, Jenna held the position of Risk Manager at the Australian Pesticide and Veterinary Medicine Authority, the regulator of crop protection products, where she was responsible for assessing crop protection applications. She has a strong background in science, particularly in botany and fibre crops. Jenna undertook her tertiary studies at Colorado State University and holds a Master in Tropical Plant Science from James Cook University.

Bronwyn is the Yarra Valley Regional Co-ordinator for the “Keep Yarra Valley Fruit Fly Free” project, funded by Victoria’s State-Wide Action Plan. Her extended contribution to Agribusiness Yarra Valley is valued by commercial horticulturalists, community gardening groups, Landcare, home gardeners and local council. Bronwyn has both inherited and developed strong working relationships with all the stakeholders in the fight to prevent fruit fly. She draws on her technical and production experience and has demonstrated her commitment to supporting trade projects. She is qualified with a Bachelor of Applied Science Agriculture (2000) and has recently attained an Undergraduate Certificate in Biosecurity (2021).

Dr Schellhorn is co-founder and CEO of RapidAIM digital pest surveillance and management system for agriculture. RapidAIM takes the guesswork out of pest management.

Prior to co-founding RapidAIM, Nancy was a Principal Research Scientist with CSIRO in Brisbane Australia where she developed and lead concepts to achieve pest-suppressive landscapes; a way of measuring, designing and managing agricultural landscape mosaics for productivity and biodiversity.

Nancy has served on many national and international committees and advisory panels including the Federal Office of Gene Technology Regulator – Technical Advisory Committee, the GRDC National Grains Pest Advisory Committee, the Cotton Industry Technical Advisory Committee, and the OECD Integrated Pest Management Advisory Committee. Dr Schellhorn received her BS in Agriculture from the University of Missouri–Columbia, a MS in Ecology from the University of Missouri-St Louis, and PhD in Entomology from University of Minnesota. In 1999, she joined CSIRO in Australia.

Emily Crawford is a Project Officer – Horticulture Industry Development, with Agriculture Victoria, based at Tatura.

Emily’s role is to run the Australian Apple and Pear Integrated Pest and Disease Management webpage and facilitate an IPDM Community of Practice of industry experts and advisors. The aim is to provide independent, expert advice on Apple and Pear IPDM and upskill growers and advisors in IPDM.

This work is part of the PIPS 3 program and sits within AP19002 Strengthening cultural and biological management of pests and diseases in apple and pear orchards (AP19002).

Jeremy has a background in environmental science and is a keen amateur entomologist. He has a strong interest in agriculture, and in particular, in understanding the role played by flower-visiting insects in global food production. As a member of the Rader Ecology Lab at the University of New England, he has undertaken pollination research on a variety of crops across Australia and is currently focused on assessing the impact of protected cropping practices on pollinating insects and fruit production in apple and blueberry.