A lot of ground was covered by Emydex in Australia and New Zealand over three weeks in February and March, visiting both customers and prospects in Western Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, and North & South Islands in New Zealand
It was great for Emydex CEO David McMahon to finally (post covid) meet and get to know all our fifteen hard-working Emydex employees working around Perth, Brisbane, Auckland, and Christchurch.
Week 1 of the trip centred around Emydex customer meetings in Western Australia (Harvey Beef, WAMMCO), Victoria (O’Connor Beef, Central Agri group), Wagga Wagga (Junee Lamb), finishing up in Sydney on Friday for a series of meetings with prospective customers. This gave Emydex CEO David McMahon and Emydex GM for Australasia, Jeffrey Macer-Wright, time on Saturday morning to take in some of the sights of Sydney via a running tour, before heading on to Auckland over the weekend.
Centre: A statue of Sir Thomas Mort in Sydney Harbour, founder of Emydex customer, Mort & Co
Week 2 focussed on customer and prospect meetings in the North and South Islands in New Zealand. In New Zealand, Jeffrey and David met up with Ian Carson, as well as five Emydex NZ employees working around Auckland on North Island, and Christchurch on the South Island. Emydex staff travelled from their WFH locations to attend deferred Emydex Christmas parties in Auckland and Christchurch.
Customer visits included Wilson Hellaby, North Island, as well as visiting Christchurch to see Emydex in action in the Silver Ferns Beef primal processing plant in Belfast. The latter half of the week was spent in Dunedin for a series of meetings in Silver Fern Farms' head office, as well as meetings with prospects, and a potential partner company, Scott Technology.
Left: Wilson Hellaby, Auckland. Centre: SFF, Belfast, Christchurch. Right: SFF HQ, Dunedin
Week 3 was spent mainly in Queensland, Australia, where Emydex has an office supporting our ten staff in South Brisbane in the city centre. Customer meetings were held over two days, with Mort & Co at their head office in Toowoomba, followed by a visit to see one of their feedlots in operation at Grassdale. In addition, a visit to see one of Mort & Cos supplier factories. Scheduling challenges meant the team had to settle for a virtual call with Emydex customer Sunpork, based in Eagle Farm, close to our Brisbane office. The remainder of the week included several prospective customer meetings in both Queensland and Victoria. The week ended with Birthday celebrations for long-serving Emydex employee Carl Brennan, a Lead Solutions Engineer with Emydex for over 10 years, who last year permanently relocated with his family from Ireland to Brisbane.
Left: most of the Emydex Brisbane office team. Centre: Grassdale feedlot. Right: Carl Brennan
Overall, the three-week trip included nine customer meetings, as well as nine prospective customer meetings, and culminated with a visit by Charlie McConalogue, Minister for Agriculture, Food & the Marine of Ireland, Jane Connolly, Ambassador of Ireland to New Zealand, and a delegation from Enterprise Ireland to see Emydex in action in the Silver Fern Farms Ltd primary beef processing plant in Belfast, Christchurch.
L-R: Dylan Marsh, STREAMLINE Lead, Silver Fern Farms; Mary Kinnane, APAC Director Enterprise Ireland; Brendan Gleeson, the Secretary-General in the Irish Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine; Matt Ballard, Chief Transformation Officer, Silver Fern Farms; Charlie McConalogue T.D, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine of Ireland; H.E. Jane Connolly, Ambassador of Ireland to New Zealand; Jeffrey Macer-Wright, General Manager, Emydex Australasia; Niall Casey, Enterprise Ireland
Emydex’s Technical Director, James Grennan will travel out to Australia and New Zealand in April for a series of technical workshops with Emydex customers.
Both David and James will return to Australia in July when Emydex will be exhibiting at the foodpro trade show in Melbourne from 23-26 July
