Please activate JavaScript!
Please install Adobe Flash Player, click here for download

FBR March 2016

www.fbreporter.com FOOD & BEVERAGE REPORTER | MARCH 2016 | 9 key influence/s? When I left Robertsons for Rainbow in 2003, my chairman’s brief to me was: “The business needs fixing, but build me a team like you did at Robertsons”. No metrics, just “build a team”. I’ve always got credit for building teams, and I’ve always tried to build teams of people who are better than me. I’m quite informal and although I’m serious about what I do, I believe it’s important to have fun too. The SA food industry is being tested to the limit with a perfect storm of challenges (drought, economic stagnation, currency depreciation, political uncertainty etc etc). Do you sleep at night? My personal philosophy is that if you’re passionate about what you do, you’ll see challenges and crises as an opportunity, rather than lying there and stewing over them. I do worry about certain things but I’ve never panicked. My response is always to look for a solution, because there always has to be a way to work within a given environment. If you get like-minded, passionate people together as a team then you will usually see something that other people don’t - which is why one of our company values is “seeing and doing things differently”. People get most stressed when they’re alone. You employ a helluva lot of people within the group. And labour relations have been rocky in recent times at subsidiaries like Vector and Foodcorp. What’s your view on the state of labour relations in the sector? Are unions playing a constructive or destructive role? Labour relations in South Africa are generally a big issue, and between business and labour we need to get our act together. Having said that, I think it’s important to distinguish between labour and unions. Labour isn’t an entity, labour is our people. We need to find a way to have conversations with our people about our joint future, without another agenda. That starts with building relationships with our people, and technology could play a big role in helping do that. What is the No. 1 challenge facing the food industry in SA? Policy issues, service delivery and labour relations are all factors in our complex social and political fabric in SA, but I think the biggest challenge is probably a lack of service delivery. Simply put, we can’t make what we make without water and electricity, nor can people have a decent quality of life - which ultimately puts further pressure on the country, not just the food industry. How will Rainbow/Farmer Brown be affected by the AGOA deal allowing cheap American chicken to flood in from the USA? Duty-free dumping of 65 000 tons of American bone-in chicken would have adverse implications for the local market, with unfair competition from cheap imports affecting our sales volumes and the viability of the local industry - especially for smaller producers. Although we believe AGOA is important for South Africa, we have ... Continued on next page Miles Dally, CE of RCL FOODS, the JSE-listed food giant with household brands such as Rainbow, Selati, Yum-Yum and Ouma, usually keeps a low profile. In this, the first in a series of in- depth interviews with key players in the foodbev sector, Dally tells Bruce Cohen what drives him and how the group - with R24-billion in annual sales and 20 000 employees - is facing up to the challenge of doing business in such turbulent times. THOUGHT FOR FOOD Duty-free dumping of 65000 tons of 20000 employees

Pages Overview