Website markets paddock to plate lamb

By MARTIN BUNYARD, QUEENSLAND COUNTRY LIFE 27 September 2007

HONESTY is at the heart of being young, smart and ready for Dave Graham. Almost two years on from his appearance on the Channel 10 reality series Big Brother, Dave is creating a career centred on the rural life he dearly loves

These days his schedule is filled with promotional appearances and business meetings. But reality television aside, Dave has been focused on developing an internet business that is attracting accolades from across rural industry.

A cleverly constructed website called www.farmerdavedirect.com.au has built a platform to launch an online farmers market.
The new venture is known as Farmer Dave Free Range Lamb and involves online sales of branded lamb product.
The principles of the online farmers? market are based on supplying consumers with free range lamb produced in a sustainable way by family farmers, processed by rural butchers and transported by regional carriers, Dave said.

The new venture received a tick of approval recently after being selected as a finalist in this year's Red Meat Industry Awards held during Queensland's Royal Show.

A strong motivation to reduce the price volatility many sheep meat producers face lead to the creation of Farmer Dave Free Range Lamb. As a producer I realise it's difficult getting $27/head for your lambs one week, then $78 the following week, Dave said.
The price volatility in the market was a real concern because as producers we are at the bottom of the food chain. This is what makes Farmer Dave's online sales such a successful concept. Using his fame, Dave has built a website that has received an estimated 100,000 visitors in the past eight months.

With an established customer base, Dave can offer lamb producers a paddock to plate selling opportunity. If a producer can take themselves from product supply to retail consumable product then a lot of the volatility is taken away, Dave said. While taking a moment away from the Enhancing Entrepreneurial Skills course he was attending, Dave explained that his business concept isn't new, but just being done in a different way to anyone else.

"Being smart in agriculture is about taking an age old business and looking at how it can be done better, he said. And the business concept appears to be working, especially since Dave is known through his reality television career by almost five million Australians.
I've been very busy trying to fill the online orders," he said. A standout quality of Farmer Dave Free Range Lamb's is the fact it will be producer owned. The concept works in a way that every producer who provides lamb for the Farmer Dave label will get shares in the company.

Ownership of the lamb is retained by Farmer Dave Free Range Lamb, with a service fee being paid to abattoirs, butchers and carriers.
Another bonus to producers from using the Farmer Dave service is an increased price for lambs compared to average market prices.
According to Dave, the online business has paid producers 30 percent above recent market prices obtained for lambs sold in saleyards.
"The idea is to take my current connection to farmers and extend that to farmer's products," he said.

We give producers price stability that is normally not found in the market.
The future looks bright for Dave's business, with a venture capital company SCB Management backing the business for Farmer Dave Free Range Lamb to become a nationally available product.

Consumers in South East Queensland, Sydney and Melbourne can order lamb product online for delivery.

"Sometimes the biggest fear we have is being successful and are scared that our venture may succeed. I no long have that worry," Dave said.

My aim is now to be the number one lamb brand in Australia.