Australian Agricultural Company CEO David Harris reveals crippling inflation pressures a major struggle for the company
The CEO of a major Australian beef producer has bemoaned stringent inflationary pressures as a huge issue for the business after revealing a profit jump.
Australian Agricultural Company (AACo) on Thursday posted a $58.4m profit for the fiscal year ending March 31 - a 14 per cent jump on the 2024 financial year.
The company's revenue rose about 15 per cent to $388m and meat sales jumped about 21 per cent to 16.5 million kilograms.
While the producer posted a strong result, its CEO David Harris admitted AACo still struggled with price pressures that have plagued Aussies after the pandemic.
'There's no doubting the economy is softer and we saw that from a demand perspective domestically over the last 24 months,' Mr Harris told Sky's Business Now.
'We aren't having problems finding staff, but we're certainly having to work really hard at managing those inflationary pressures from a cost perspective.
'It's a lot of focus and something that I think we've done a great job at to be able to deliver the results that we have today.'
Inflation soared after the pandemic, rising from three per cent in September 2021 to its post-COVID peak at 7.8 per cent in December 2022.
While inflation gradually fell over the coming two years to eventually sit within the Reserve Bank of Australia's 2-3 per cent target band, trimmed mean inflation – the middle 70 per cent of price changes – only dropped to the range in March.
The cumulative impact of the price rises mean Aussies pay 17.5 per cent more than what they did about three and a half years ago.
Alongside inflationary pressures that have eaten into budgets, Mr Harris was also asked about Donald Trump's trade war and the impact this could have on the local beef industry.
The President hit Australian exports with the blanket 10 per cent tariff, sparking fears about billions of dollars' worth of beef Australia sends to the US every year.
However, President Trump went on to temporarily pause the tariff on Australian goods alongside most other levies on foreign exports.
Mr Harris said the turmoil from the US commander-in-chief's trade war had not set the Aussie beef producer back.
'It hasn't actually changed that much for us,' he said.
'I was in the US and Canada only a couple of weeks ago. We see really strong demand from North America for our product.'
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