Agribusiness students from the University of Queensland’s Gatton campus have notched up a campus first with global marketing assignments to assess the potential for food exports.
Groups of students visited Europe to prepare a Peanut Company of Australia and the Middle East report for EcoFoods, a group targeting markets for environmentally-friendly fresh produce.
UQ Gatton Associate Professor in agribusiness Ray Collins said the wide spread of trips this year had also included Taiwan and India. This reflected demand from the corporate sector for quality market intelligence.
“Assignments by final-year students have until now concentrated on countries in Asia,” Dr Collins said.
“The experience we’ve gained working in the region gave us the confidence to undertake work for clients further afield.
“The students do all the groundwork themselves, then each team puts together a report for presentation to a client on return. It’s an important part of their final-year assessment.”
Dr Collins said the real-world experience gained by the students helped make them more employable after graduation.
“Their success rate in finding jobs has been outstanding,” Dr Collins said.
Senior lecturer in agribusiness Dr Kim Bryceson accompanied a group of students on a trip to Italy and The Netherlands, exploring the potential for peanut imports from Australia.
The group met with some of the biggest peanut importers in Europe as well as brokers and processors.
The trip raised awareness of Australian product, particularly the high-oleic healthy peanut which has long shelf-life.
“The two markets are quiet different and the students found this challenging,” Dr Bryceson said.
“For example, one importer they dealt with in The Netherlands imports 90,000 tonnes of peanuts a year while in Italy the students worked more with traditional family companies.
“They came back with some business models and made a presentation to the Peanut Company of Australia and this was well-received.”
Agribusiness lecturer Dr Yunus Khatri accompanied a group of students to Dubai to assess the potential for fresh food imports grown to an environmentally-sustainable code.
They met with importers, wholesalers and retailers, visited markets and conducted a consumer survey.
EcoFoods chairman Paul Ziebarth said the company was keen to gain a perception of the Middle East market for environmentally-friendly produce.
“Dubai is the hub of a region which is an important part of our export business plan,” Mr Ziebarth said.
“The company also aims to target the European and Asian regions as well as establishing a strong direct retail presence in the Australian market with farmers retaining ownership through to the consumer.”
Media: For more information, contact Dr Ray Collins (telephone 5460 1328) or Anthony Smith (telephone 0409 265 587).
