May 5th 2009
New Partnership with Silver Fern Farms
We live in unique times and we must be prepared to change with them where we can see more value in doing so.
Rissington Breedline (RBL) has never been a business that set out to go along with the status quo if it didn't believe in it. As I understand it our clients and partners have come to know, or even expect, that RBL enjoys tough challenges in the lamb and beef sector, and in an open manner attempts to turn such challenges into opportunities. With this in mind we are very pleased to announce an agreement with Silver Fern Farms to formalise and expand our existing partnership.
We established Rissington Breedline Logistics & Marketing as part of a number of initiatives over the last 4 years to enable our clients to build a closer relationship with the market and more transparency up and down the supply chain. At the time we embarked on this strategy with partners Marks & Spencer (M&S) there was little in the industry that resembled this concept.
However over time, and more particularly in the last 2 years, we have increasingly had both a common view of what needs to happen to enable this to be achieved with Silver Fern Farms, and also a common desire to make it happen. Through this process we have critically assessed roles, responsibilities and resources, and it became clear that we needed to restructure these with Silver Fern Farms to avoid duplication or potential conflict in the future. For supply chains to be successful they must be fast and efficient with information flowing both ways. Avoiding duplication is critical.
What this means is that on 1 June 2009:
1) Silver Fern Farms will purchase the assets of the supply chain subsidiary company Rissington Breedline Logistics & Marketing (RBLM)
2) Staff currently working on this side of the business will transfer to Silver Fern Farms (Hastings based), being Jeremy Absolom (RBL CEO) & Renee Hogg (RBLM Supply Chain Manager)
3) RBL & Silver Fern Farms enter a partnership agreement to:
a. Work together to develop the Primera product and supply chain alongside suppliers for M&S
b. Develop additional integrated lamb and beef options for RBL clients that don't compete with M&S
c. Continue to co-invest in progeny testing
4) Jeremy Absolom will continue to be involved with RBL both through the new role at Silver Fern Farms and as a director of RBL
5) Alastair Nelson and Graham Leech will continue their roles as General Manager (NZ) and Commercial Finance Director respectively.
Essentially RBL retains its core business and RBLM suppliers should see limited change in that Renee will still continue to be overseeing this part of the business at Silver Fern Farms working closely with Jeremy, but they will obviously have more support and resources to assist in the development of the integrated programmes.
There will be no change for breeding partners or clients who purchase rams, ewes, bulls or heifers from us.
It is clear to me that the success and rebuilding of the sheep sector will rely on significantly greater levels of cooperation up and down the value chain and I feel this is an important step along that path.
Silver Fern Farms will have a small piece in their Newsletter due out this week.
If you have any questions or comments please don't hesitate to call me or any of the RBL team.
Kind Regards
Rick Bettle
