The Oyster Consortium is in danger of making market investment decisions without agreed strategy or, stalled by indecision, making an insignificant investment to ensure a profitable marketplace on completion of the CRC.
The Consortium needs an agreed document, collating all work undertaken on consumer trends and expectations, that guides its investment within the marketing area. It also needs a strategic direction for the industry.
To begin to address this the Oyster Consortium;
1. will undertake to complete an Australian Oyster Industry Business Plan addressing the production environment, market/supply chain, industry structures before recommending an R & D plan.
2. has commissioned a desktop project that a) defines the current consumer’s expectations, b) summarises previous recommendations, and c) identifies any gaps in previous work.
3. plans to hold a follow up meeting to decide a) if/how the industry can meet those expectations through understanding product produced, b) directions it may take to meet expectations, in particular to consider contribution to relevant CRC projects ahead of Australian Oyster Industry Business Plan completion.
The “Oyster Consortium marketing projects investment meeting” is an essential step to guide the work of the Consortium’s Marketing Working Group and a vital step in achieving the following aims;
• Accepting a documented summary of consumer expectations from which to guide investment
• Forming views on industry needs and strategies that enable the industry to meet those expectations
• Preliminary input into the Business Plan and resolution on financial contribution into relevant CRC projects
Final report
This workshop focused on marketing directions for the Australian oyster industry. The oyster consortium vision was to:
"Improve the profitability of Australian oyster businesses through increasing penetration of innovative and existing oyster products into new and existing markets."
The current status of the oyster industry was discussed along with marketing goals up to 2014 and marketing strategies for the next 3-5 years. For each of the 8 marketing strategies the opportunities for marketing projects were broken down into 'discovery and development' in years 1—3 and 'Action learning and piloting' in years 4-5.
The workshop was attended by representatives from the South Australian, Tasmanian and New South Wales oyster industries and representatives from the UniSA Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Services.
