Pete Findlay on Bega’s cost crunch
5/8/202630 min
A closed shipping route can sound like a distant problem - until it starts showing up in the cost of Vegemite, peanut butter, milk, cheese, yoghurt, packaging, freight, fertiliser, and food on Australian shelves.
Pete Findlay runs Bega, the company behind some of Australia’s best-known products. He says the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is already driving costs higher right through the supply chain.
So, from his vantage point, what does the ongoing global energy crisis mean for food prices, for inflation after another RBA warning, and for how long businesses can keep holding the line before consumers feel the full impact?
It’s also a conversation about what Australians eat, how the food industry is changing, and why protein, wellness, GLP-1 drugs, and productivity are becoming central to the future of Australian agriculture and manufacturing.
Bega chief executive Pete Findlay joins Alan Kohler to unpack it all on That's Business with Alan Kohler.
Got a burning business question?
Send a short voice recording to the ABC Business Daily team at abcbusinessdaily@abc.net.au
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMatt Bevan0:00
ABC Listen. Podcasts, radio, news, music, and more. [instrumental music] If I had to pick one word to describe America's history in the Middle East, I'd probably go with mistake.
Pete Findlay· Guest0:14
But it was, the Americans believe, all a dreadful mistake. The backpackers crossed the poorly marked border by mistake. The war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake.
Matt Bevan0:24
So why is it happening again? I'm Matt Bevan, and on my show, If You're Listening, we actually try to learn from the world's mistakes. Find us on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.
Alan Kohler· Host0:34
[instrumental music] One of the industries most affected by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is the food industry through freight costs, plastic packaging, and the rise in the price of fertilizer. Now, to get a sense of what that means for our food prices, this week on That's Business, we've got Pete Findlay, the CEO of Bega Group, the one hundred and twenty-five-year-old dairy company that also makes peanut butter and Vegemite. In preview, he reckons that we can expect five to six percent inflation as a result of what's going on in the Middle East. There are also some big trends in food consumption that he's also having to deal with, the rise in protein consumption and general wellness, but also the increase in the use of weight loss drugs.