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South Africa offers vast opportunities for Irish Agritech exporters

Ongoing uncertainty over Brexit has increased awareness among Irish companies of the need to diversify exports into new markets. In the agritech sector, where the consequences of a hard Brexit could be acute, South Africa offers vast opportunities for suppliers of agri-machinery and technology, as well as companies that offer livestock supplements and feed.

South Africa has the most diverse and productive agri-farming industry on the continent. In 2018, the overall agri value chain contributed 14pc to GDP, while 33pc of revenue earned from South African exports resulted from primary agri-produce. Additionally, the agri sector grew by 6.5pc in the third quarter of 2018.

Farming productivity and sustainability are key trends in South Africa and farmers are looking for new ways to improve their efficiency.

As they are willing to invest in innovative machinery and services that deliver value for money, the reputation that Ireland has developed for producing high-quality equipment has been well received by large commercial farmers.

At present, there is a demand for precision agricultural equipment, such as tractors, planters, balers, sprayers, storage, and soil-testing equipment, most of which are imported.

One Irish agri company, Abbey Machinery, moved into the market in 2018 after a sales enquiry led to one of its diet feeder machines proving its mettle in the country's demanding Highveld region.

Michael O'Grady, sales, marketing and business development manager at Abbey Machinery, said: "The dealer who contacted us had initially seen opportunity only for our feeders but one of the mega farmers also saw a need for one of our slurry tankers because it had more elements he could use than his current machine, which was also imported from Europe.

"There's lots of competition in South Africa - we're not the first foreign agricultural machinery manufacturer in the market - but farmers liked the quality of the machine, how well it was built, and how well it was able to handle the feed."

Easyfix also entered the South African market last year, offering rubber matting and flooring solutions via distributors.

PJ Burke, sales director of the Ballinasloe-based company, toured several farms and believes that farmers are willing to spend money on quality products that add value to their operations.

"We've equipped six farms with our products so far. Obviously there's competition with established products, but we've got a good hit rate and the feedback we're getting from the installations so far is very positive," he said.

"It's not an important market for us yet but it will be. The farmers that I've visited, eight to 10 of them, all have high-production herds, so there's a real opportunity for our range of products to get a foothold there."

Software company Emydex has grown its presence in South Africa over the last six years and a local partner has assisted the company in setting up 16 factories across Southern Africa.

Its tailored solutions and standard products are implemented across food-processing industries, including beef, ostrich and cold storage in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana.

"Emydex entered the South African market with our first factory floor implementation in 2013," said Shane Hayes, a business analyst who covers technical sales for Emydex.

"With assistance from Enterprise Ireland using market research, Emydex was able to establish a pipeline of prospects that fit with our vision and business model."

Emydex now plans to work in close collaboration with both Enterprise Ireland in Africa and their local partner to expand into new countries within the market, including Kenya and Nigeria.

Abbey Machinery, Easyfix and Emydex are among several Irish companies that are establishing the Irish brand in South Africa.

Enterprise Ireland will continue to support Irish agritech companies that enter and have presences in South Africa and other African countries.

Article written by Dr Ureshnie Govender - a senior market adviser in Life Science and Agritech for Enterprise Ireland in Johannesburg, South Africa.

 

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Australia goes ‘green’ over Irish contracts worth $10m

More than $10 million in new Australian contracts including investments in ICT and emerging technologies - along with a new Melbourne office for Enterprise Ireland - has been announced as part of a Trade Mission from Ireland.

Irish Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation Heather Humphreys - accompanied by 71 Irish companies from the fintech, medtech, high-tech construction, agritech, emerging technologies and ICT sectors - announced the deals.

“Australia is a mature and highly developed economy that offers significant opportunity for Irish exporters,” Humphreys said in announcing the deals.

“Despite the long distance to market, Australia’s open economy, significant infrastructure expenditure and strategic location at the doorstep of Asia has led many Irish companies to enter and perform strongly in the market. The size and scope of this trade mission demonstrate that now more than ever the importance of this marker.”Heather Humphreys -Irish Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation Heather Humphreys -Irish Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation

Humphreys said the deals - and the opening of the Melbourne office of Enterprise Ireland - are a direct result of continued growth in export to Australia and New Zealand from Ireland to the sum of $404 million last year - an increase of 43 per cent over the past three years.

On the technology front, the deals are as follows:

- Kingspan Insulated Panels announces a $8 million capex investment for a new state-of-the-art machine that will operate at its factory in Greater Western Sydney.

-Solgari and Barhead strike a deal to bring Solgari’s Dynamics 365 All-Channel Solution to Barhead Financial Service & Retail customers in Australia. The partnership gives Solgari access to Microsoft’s global partner network and millions of potential customers.

-Emydex announces a contract with Harvey Beef, the largest meat processing company in WA, to provide its food processing software.

-Eppione announces a contract to license oits software to HR consulting firm Talenting.

-Combilift announces a contract with E Store Logistics, which is set to become the second largest user of the Combilift Aisle Master product and largest private user across A/NZ.

Humphreys said 320 Irish companies are now exporting to Australia - companies that employ over 25,000 people in Ireland.

“Our ambition is to grow client exports to $574 million by 2020. I am delighted to lead this Trade and Investment Mission to Australia and engage in an extensive program of activity which focuses on supporting Irish companies to expand exports into this significant market," Humphreys said.

Article written by Jennifer O'Brien (CIO)

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How the Food Industry should handle contamination

From salmonella in Maltesers to insecticide in eggs: how the food industry should handle contamination.

Businesses, regardless of size, should be responsible for their individual link in the food supply chain, so that product contamination can be recognised and dealt with effectively.

According to product liability barrister at a leading London law firm, scares such as the salmonella in Maltesers to eggs contaminated with insecticide are “nightmare scenarios” for the firms involved.

“As consumers, we have a right to assume that the things we buy on the shelves should be safe,” Alistair Mackenzie from Chambers 2 Temple Gardens said.

Food safety regulation is aimed at keeping consumers safe, he added, and to ensure there is no incentive for the industry to hide any issues that it discovers.

Often the law imposes penalties on a wide range of people involved in a contamination case, including those involved at any stage in the food arriving with the final consumer.

“In terms of keeping track of products, monitoring Maltesers products and eggs varies quite a bit, but the responsibility still remains,” said Mr Mackenzie.

“The key has got to be in meticulous record keeping. And making sure that the person you’re sending it on to is also keeping track.”

Mr Mackenzie held up the example of the scares with Mars and eggs as almost polar opposites in the way contamination cases should be handled.

“When Mars first recognised that there might be a salmonella problem, they put their hand up, as the law requires. This is a good example of what should be done; the affected products were clearly indicated and the contaminated was very heavily publicised,” he said.

Comparing this example with the news that eggs were contaminated with insecticide, Mr Mackenzie believes that Mars handled the media effectively and in a transparent way.

“With the eggs, it looks like there has been an attempt to play it down. And the number of eggs that were believed to have entered the UK rose from 21,000 to 700,000 in just one week,” he said.

“Granted, it’s more difficult to have any coordinated strategy in terms of tracking eggs. But more people are worried about the contamination of eggs than Mars products. You should be able to trace an egg from a consumer’s hand back to the chicken it came from.” 

According to the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), under national and EU food rules, all food business have to keep traceability information – ‘one step forward and one step back’, i.e. records of from whom they received foods or food ingredients and (except in the case of retail sales) to whom it was supplied. And this information has to be supplied to the authorities on demand.

“The ability to trace and track products and ingredients is particularly important when food is unfit or unsafe and has to be withdrawn or recalled from the market.  The more detailed the traceability information kept, the narrower any recall or withdrawal will be,” a statement from the authority read.

“The FSAI deals with over 500 food incidents per year and overall our experience is that food businesses co-operate with withdrawals and recalls and provide the necessary detailed traceability information when asked or required to do so.”

Article written by Louise Kelly, Independent.

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Help for Irish agri firms to move into African market

With over 1.2m sq km of land, South Africa comprises Mediterranean, subtropical and semi-desert regions, producing everything from deciduous, citrus and subtropical fruit to grain, wool, cut flowers, livestock and game.

Its farm holdings range in size from the vast fields of the Eastern Cape to subsistence-based production in deep, rural parts.

When things become quiet around the Irish countryside, South Africa’s counter-seasonality offers agritech and farm-machinery producers an additional southern hemisphere market to provide a counterbalance to the end of a busy period back at home.

While some agricultural markets ‘down under’ have a strong indigenous farm machinery heritage, South Africa has a preference for imported European and North American equipment.

The good news is that, despite the weak value of the South African rand, European exports can compete on price. Irish companies active in the market include farm-machinery producers Keenan and McHale and food-processing software provider Emydex.

Other potential opportunities offered by South Africa’s large agricultural sector include animal nutrition and veterinary products, dairy and meat-processing equipment, alternative-energy solutions and water-saving technologies.

South Africa is the largest animal-feed producer on the continent, and there’s an ongoing opportunity to supply supplements to feed manufacturers, although this will mean taking market share from existing players.

Meat processing remains a large sector, particularly as the consumption of protein is increasing with a growing middle class. With the introduction of minimum-wage legislation there is a heavy focus on efficiency, with many South African farmers and processors looking to new technologies to increase productivity.

In selecting a South African market representative, companies should look for an agent or distributor that can provide an after-sales service and offer market reach right into the whole of the southern Africa continent. They may also be best advised to consider some of the smaller equipment suppliers, as larger distributors typically already have a full complement of partnerships in place and are less likely to take on new products.

In November, we will be taking a group of Irish farm equipment and agtech specialists on a market study tour to South Africa, providing an ideal opportunity to get a feel for the market, meet potential partners and showcase their products.

The visit will also take in Kenya, where agriculture accounts for 20pc of GDP, and tea and horticultural products are the country’s largest exports.

The Kenyan market represents yet a different opportunity again. The sector is characterised by small-scale farming, with family businesses typically operating on one-to-three hectare farms. However, the country is well capable of handling productivity gains thanks to a variety of climatic conditions, allowing for good grain, sugar cane, coffee and tea production.

Young Kenyans, who are leaving office jobs to venture into farming, are receptive to modernisation, and agriculture is central to the government’s economic development strategy. In 2010, Kenya signed a comprehensive Africa agriculture development programme to address constraints such as low investment and limited access to technology.

Irish animal-health company Cross Vetpharm has operations in Kenya, and those active elsewhere in East Africa include MagGrow, a start-up commercialising eco-efficient spraying technology; Hermitage Genetics, which specialises in pig breeding, and milking parlour specialist DairyMaster. There’s no doubt that other Irish firms selling to the agricultural sector could also look to Africa.

We here in Enterprise Ireland’s Johannesburg office can help with information, introductions and itinerary planning for market visits.

Natasha Siniscalchi-Dönmez is a Enterprise Ireland senior market adviser for Sub-Saharan Africa

Sunday Indo Business

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Food industry software on the fast-track growth plan

Software company Emydex is a ten-year-old software company, and now a three-in-a-row winner in the Deloitte Fast 50, placed at 17 with a revenue growth rate of 400 percent.

Emydex pictured with the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Richard Bruton, TD, earlier in 2014

Its products are aimed at the food processing sector, from raw material arrival and slaughtering, through factory floor operations to traceability compliance and multi-site reporting. It is unique in having specialised solutions for sub-sectors such as beef, lamb, pork, poultry, fish and the pre-retail processing of products from them.

“We currently have 70 plants using our software in Ireland, Britain, France and Namibia and Botswana in Africa,” said Emydex chief executive David McMahon. “In most cases our clients are food groups, so there are four sites in Namibia and three in Botswana. Our clients are something of a ‘who’s who’ of food groups, certainly to Irish eyes, including Kerry Foods, Dawn Meats, Kepak, Moy Park, Dunbia Group, Slaney Foods, Liffey Meats and Rockabill Shellfish.

Emydex systems work with about 70 percent of core platform software in common, McMahon said. A further 20 per cent or so is tailored to the specific vertical sub-sector and at least 10 per cent in all cases that is tailored to the particular client and even site.

“This is what underpins one of our key selling points internationally. We can integrate seamlessly with whatever enterprise systems the client has already invested in, typically some of the big ERP products like Microsoft Dynamics. Our place is lower down, right on the production floor to capture key production data that feeds upwards to a central management system.”

At a higher but still sector-specific level, Emydex covers plant management fields such as yields and costings, quality management, recipe management (formulation) and production planning. It also integrates with complimentary systems areas such as warehouse management, cold storage and logistics.

“Most of our installations are on-premise and deployed, supported and updated from our Dublin head-office,” Said McMahon.

“We also offer a cloud solution, which some clients have embraced. Cloud is also the medium for our own software development and testing. Ironically, it then offers a perfect drop-in solution for on-premise deployments, which are already tailored and tested to the client and site specifications. Then we simply drop the total package onto the client’s local server.”

Emydex is currently targeting other overseas markets, notably the US, Canada and Australia, where it has local partners in place, as well as South Africa.

Details of the final Technology Fast 50 ranking list are available to download at www.fast50.ie

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HOT HIGH-GROWTH COMPANIES: TWENTY TO WATCH

Ireland’s most exciting companies are going for global growth. From Enterprise Ireland’s top 100 list, here are 20 rising stars

15. Emydex Technology

Funding: self-funded with Enterprise Ireland backing

Ambition: rapid expansion
The agrifood software company plans to add 20 software developer staff in the next year, doubling its numbers. It recently won a valuable contract with Namibian firm MeatCo.

In the aftermath of the horse meat scandal and with growing food safety concerns worldwide, the time is ripe for fast growth.

Emydex is in the hot agritech space, providing software that gives critical food traceability in the industry for food processing companies like Dawn Meats and Moy Park, helping them track producing, costs and origin of product.

Written by Róisín Burke – Sunday Business Post

Sunday Business Post

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