Will Barton: Taking the nation’s billion-dollar lamb industry global

Young gun meat processor Will Barton wants to take the sheep industry with him on his quest to produce top-shelf lamb. He shares his insights.

Will Barton of Gundagai Meat Processors. Picture: Rachael Lenehan

Will Barton’s vision to lift the quality of ­Australian lamb comes with a view.

Sitting inside his office at Gundagai Meat Processors, as a gentle hum spreads out from a glass-frosted fridge in the cornerstocked full with choice cuts of cherry red lamb, Barton has his eyes across all parts of a multimillion-dollar business thatis playing a unique role in guiding the ­future of the nation’s billion-dollar lamb industry.

Out one window, the 43-year-old can see his buying team, a group of three, talking though the latest prices and performanceof lambs they have secured. Out the other, there’s a walkway where workers in blue gumboots pass by, acknowledging their bosswith a smile and a wave.

It’s an upbeat vibe and smiles all round, from the beaming welcome at the weigh bridge to the friendly hellos at the frontdesk in admin.

The flower-lined driveways and neat-as-a-pin surrounds of GMP are hardly what you’d expect from an abattoir bustling withtruck movements, stock and hundreds of employees, but they reflect the determination of chief executive Barton and his family as they dare to be different in the sometimes-maligned world of meat processing.

That determination is manifesting itself in a high quality branded lamb and is establishing the southern NSW business, which Barton jokingly describes as an “overnight ­success that is decades in the making”, as the one to watch in the industry.

The GMP mantra is centred on putting quality parameters around lamb, rewarding producers for supplying stock with high levelsof marbling, unashamedly copying what’s proved to be so successful with beef.

It ensures that every box of lamb that leaves under its brand will perform, with consistent high standard, and Barton saysthat means those who taste it once will come back – and that’s what it’s all about.

Will Barton. Picture: Rachael Lenehan

The Bartons have a long history with not only the world of meat but the district of Gundagai, which is nestled on the banksof the Murrumbidgee River about four hours’ drive southwest of Sydney.

In 1919, not long after the end of World War I, Barton’s grandfather, Fred, began work in a butcher shop in the town’s mainstreet. He eventually took it over in the 1950s, with Barton’s Butchery becoming a household name locally. Fred had five childrenand two of them – Tony and Barton’s father Bill – went into the business, selling meat to the locals.

In the early 1970s, a major upgrade was needed to process stock for that shop, and a site was chosen to build an abattoir,not knowing for a minute that it would grow to the size it is today.

From small-scale kills of pigs, lambs and cattle to supply their butcher shop, GMP – which this year celebrates 50 years inthe meat processing business – has emerged as a sheep-only facility.

A team of 330 staff, who work five days a week, are the backbone of the operation, allowing contracts to be filled to processlambs for one of the nation’s major supermarkets, Coles, as well as for Hewitt, one of Australia’s largest landholders backedby Canadian behemoth PSP Investments with sheep properties scattered throughout the NSW Riverina and Western Division.

Coles has been a major part of the GMP business for more than a decade and underpins the business model for the company, whileHewitt is probably best known for its cattle operations but has chosen the abattoir to supply its lamb needs.

Will with his father Bill and uncle Tony.

Barton sits in the big chair after a circuitous route to the top job.

There was never an expectation that he would return to GMP and, in his own words, his “dismal” school performance gave noindication he would.

Barton studied food science at Charles Sturt University – he openly admits that it “took five years to get a three-year associatedegree” – in order “to be able to contribute to the business in quality assurance but there was never any pressure to return”.

With a qualification under his belt, Barton took a gap year overseas.

It was during this stint that someone talked to him about property valuing, a career that seemed like it could be an unlikelybut perfect fit for his skills. So began four years of study and a 10-year career away from his home town of Gundagai andthe meat processing world, working in a small team and mainly on valuing managed fund schemes in agriculture as diverse asalmonds, vineyards and oyster farming.

Barton now acknowledges he could not have found a better training ground if he had wanted to return to GMP and make a difference.

“What I saw from valuing a lot of businesses in corporate agriculture is that the raw materials are a vital part of success,and having a sure supply of them,” he says.

That his business skills were expanding was not lost on Barton’s father, Bill, and uncle, Tony, as they increasingly leaned on him to bounce ideas about GMP.

And with Barton’s increasing fascination with the world of agricultural processing, it was inevitable that he would want tobe a player, rather than an observer.

While the GMP business was profitable and successful, Barton’s return signalled a new era for the operation.

The enterprise depended on fee-for-service kills for the big two players, but Barton saw the chance to establish a brand oftheir own.

The brand had to be different though, and he was determined that difference was going to be based around consistent highquality.

It’s here that Barton brings out his marbles analogy.

A box of lamb is like a bag of marbles, he says, where some are chipped and some are shiny. A buyer pays an average pricefor the marbles knowing some will be excellent and some will be sub-par.

“We want Gundagai Lamb to be the bag of marbles where every single one is shiny,” Barton says.

“In a box of 20 racks of Australian lamb generally, there will be a couple that are excellent and the rest, who knows. Ourgoal was for a buyer to know when they bought a box of Gundagai Lamb racks, that every one would be excellent.”

For Barton, there was only ever one way to ensure high eating quality, and that was marbling in the meat, a trait that is well accepted in the beef industry but an enigma for lamb.

Will at The Stokehouse in St Kilda with their Gundagai lamb dish. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

The quest to find the right lambs to supply GMP’s top brand, known as GLQ5+ (Gundagai Lamb quality guaranteed with a marblingscore of five or greater) required testing for intramuscular fat.

It represented a significant paradigm shift – previously the only measurement provided for lambs was the weight of the carcass.

Undeterred, Barton worked closely with a fledgling business which had developed the MEQ meat eating quality probe which allowsreal-time assessment of marbling.

While some may have scoffed at the technology, Barton embraced it and its creators with both hands, and even convinced themto base themselves in Gundagai.

With a slick marketing campaign, striking pink and orange branding, clear messages and quality lamb, Barton’s next task wasto take it to the world – literally.

In two years, he’s travelled to the US six times, and the Middle East, Thailand and Singapore each twice, usually in quickvisits where meetings are scheduled back-to-back before Barton jumps on a plane to the next destination.

It’s hardly glamorous work, but it was essential, Barton says, if the brand was to grow quickly.

And it didn’t hurt that the tall Australian with RM Williams boots and a clean-cut image was doing the selling.

“It was not something we felt we could pass on to anyone else – it was something I needed to do personally, at least at thestart,” says Barton, acknowledging the time it took him away from not just the business but his wife, Carla, their eight-year-old twin boys, Lachlan and Harrison, and five-year-old daughter, Lilly.

His first win was in the Middle East, where a distributor acknowledged the vision, liked the product, and took it on. The next was the lauded Stokehouse restaurant in Melbourne’s St Kilda, and as each restaurant and distributor bought into theidea of consistent high-quality lamb, it became easier.

GLQ5+ lamb exports now head in three main directions – with South East Asia taking 42 per cent of supply, North and SouthAmerica 36 per cent and the Middle East and North Africa 22 per cent.

Most products are destined for food service and not only the premium cuts: the GLQ5+ range includes everything from racksand loins to lamb shoulders, legs, and even necks.

Will with his wife Carla and their children

The work Barton has been doing has not gone unnoticed in an industry where lamb has largely been a commodity. And it could nothave come at a more critical time.

A few years ago, the lowest national sheep flock for decades meant supplies of lamb couldn’t meet demand, and prices werehigh across the board almost regardless of quality.

The flow-on effects were predictable. High prices resulted in a bigger flock, and now rates have seen a major decline, almosthalving from $10 a kilogram carcass weight a few years ago to about $6 a kilogram this autumn. For some lamb producers, theirheavy lambs have dipped from $260 a head to about $130.

It means the bonuses that GMP offer, at about 80 cents a kilogram above the ruling market rates, not only reward quality butimprove the bottom line.

Patrick Hutchinson heads up the Australian Meat Industry Council and says the ability to differentiate a brand based on geography,cuts, breed, feeding regime, raising claims – or all of these factors – is a signal of progress for the industry.

Hutchinson said GMP’s branding will “no doubt set it apart from other Australian and global brands with its specific parameterson meat quality”.

“GMP has first-move advantage and the assumption, as always, is that others will work to catch up,” Hutchinson says. “The key will be about maintaining consistency of product and reliability of supply, along with stable pricing that appeals tothe target market.”

Will at Gundagai Meat Processors

Barton also seems to have found a way through the sometimes-antagonistic relationship between processor and producer.

Each lamb that is processed at GMP has information on its intramuscular fat and lean meat yield collected and notes any diseasesor conditions found.

That’s a far cry from kill sheets most lamb producers receive, where the weight is the only figure they see, and get paidon. GMP’s payment grid heavily rewards those producers whose lambs fit the bill when it comes to quality – there’s a bonusof more than 10 per cent if lambs meet the parameters.

Lamb breeders such as Isabele Roberts from Cudal in NSW say Barton is leading the way by not only offering comprehensive feedbackbut also paying more for quality lamb.

Roberts says GMP’s willingness to step out and show other meat processing businesses what is possible, has been clearly appreciatedby producers, especially those who strive to produce the best quality lambs they can.

Roberts says if the long-term goal of the lamb industry is to maintain and increase the quality of the product, it can onlybe achieved if every part of the production chain works together.

“When the meat processor is prepared to work with producers, both parties get a better understanding of what the other iswanting, as well as the challenges they face,” Roberts says.

Underpinning this relationship is one factor – trust – which Roberts describes in just one word: everything.

“Transparency is critical when trying something new, particularly in this instance where the meat processor is asking lambproducers to take a risk on the sale value of the lamb, which is only fully known after processing due to whether there arequality bonuses achieved or not,” she says.

As the GLQ5+ brand gains traction, Barton’s next challenge, he says, is to find enough lambs to supply it. Currently about150,000 of the company’s annual throughput of one million sheep and lambs are sold under the Gundagai brand.

“We have proved it is the right thing to do to differentiate lamb according to quality, and we know it can work,” he says. “We had to crawl before we could walk before we could run.”

The bent for quality and lifting lamb from a commodity to a brand is a passion for Barton, who sees no end of possibilitiesfor the protein.

The US, with its population of 341 million, provides the biggest opportunities, hence his regular visits there.

Barton says he wants to take lamb out of the “try it” category, to make it a household staple.

“I ask people if they have eaten crocodile and they say, ‘Yep, once, but not again’, and it’s like that with lamb in the US,” he says.

“We have one chance potentially for someone to try lamb and, if it is not a great experience, it will go the way of a once-only, and lamb is better than that.

“Lamb can be taken out of the commodity basket, and it could be the case for all Australian lamb.”

As Roberts points out, trust is central to GMP’s success. Those producers who supply lamb to the meat processor must trustBarton’s vision, and the customers worldwide must trust that the lamb will live up to its quality reputation.

It’s taken enormous commitment – the 5.30am starts to check emails before heading into the Gundagai facility, the overseastrips, the angst, the faith and unwavering vision of a man driven to do things differently in a cutthroat industry.

This big Aussie bloke with his RM Williams boots wants the world to love our lamb, and it’s difficult to imagine that he won’t succeed.