From the Ground Up - McCain Foods Limited

Basil Hargrove, CEO,
Asia Pacific, 2006.
put an end to what the Australians called “the big dry.”
Meanwhile, McCain’s agronomists were developing
programs to encourage growers to adopt potato varieties
less susceptible to growing disorders and early maturing
caused by dry spells. The McCain agronomists
were also pushing for enhanced irrigation systems.
McCain employees were reminded of the drought every
time they passed Lake Wendouree, site of the rowing
competition in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. The
lake, in Ballarat’s most prestigious residential area, was
bone dry.
“The Central Highlands of Australia [where Ballarat
is located] are a very good potato growing area, but these extreme drought conditions
are of great concern to us,” says Dan Dawkins, a New Brunswick native who,
after working for McCain in Canada and Europe, became technical services manager
for McCain Australia. “Water is becoming scarce, and we will have to adapt.” Luckily
for McCain, the water shortage is less severe in Tasmania and, as of 2007, still nonexistent
in New Zealand.
The growth of quick-service chains in Australia was about ten years behind that of
North America. These outlets did not start to proliferate until the late 1970s, just
as the Ballarat plant had overcome its teething problems and was producing highquality
french fries. McCain had no quick-service business in the late 1970s. By
1992, it was a major supplier to almost all Australian quick-service restaurants.
Long before the U.S.–based chains came along, Australia had an abundance of
individually owned takeaway restaurants and fish-and-chip shops. They don’t do as
much business as a McDonald’s, which sells at least ten times as many chips as a fishand-chip
shop, but there are so many of them that it was worth McCain’s while to try
to get their business. It has succeeded.
McCain is the market leader in the Australian food service industry. It’s the result,
says Yung, of simple perseverance – a large sales force making thousands of cold calls
on thousands of restaurants. “It’s good old-fashioned hard selling, and we’ve kept at
it,” he says.
McCain’s expertise in french fry technology has been a major reason for its success
in Australia’s diverse food service industry. In the field of
french fries, one size definitely does not fit all. “There are
a lot of different cuts,” explains Clements. “The fast food
chains all have their own specifications. McDonald’s in
particular is very strict about its specifications being met.
But apart from the specifications of the fast food chains,
there are all sorts of things you can do with french fries.”
To try to appeal to as many of Australia’s ten thousand
takeaway and fish-and-chip shops as possible, McCain offers
fries in several thicknesses, from shoestring to chunky.
The shoestring chip is the crispest since its outer surface
– the part that crisps – is a high percentage of the total
chip. A thick chip is not as crisp since the outer surface is only a small percentage of
the total chip. The thick chip, however, has a stronger potato flavour because the frying
oil doesn’t impregnate all of the potato, as it does with a thin chip.
Another difference is the cut: crinkle or straight. “In the early days,” recalls
Clements, “crinkle cut was all the rage because it was different. It was something
you could get with a frozen chip that you couldn’t get at home. Now crinkle cuts are
looked at as old-fashioned and the majority of McCain’s fries are straight cut.”
The off-cuts – what’s left over after the fries have been cut – are also put to good
use. They are mashed up, shaped, and fried into various specialty products with such
names as Potato Gems, Potato Cakes, and Potato Tops, for the retail market.
New Zealand is one of the world’s most beautiful countries, but Steve Yung didn’t
get much chance to enjoy the scenery after being assigned there by McCain Foods in
1994. He had been working in Florenceville as group product manager when he was
appointed marketing manager for New Zealand.
“Our furniture had barely arrived in New Zealand when I was made vice-
president of marketing for Canada back in Florenceville,” Yung recalls. “In fact, our
house in New Brunswick never sold, and we just put our paintings back in the same
places they had been. For a time in 1994 and 1995, we lived for about thirty weeks
without our household items because of moving from Canada to New Zealand and
then back again. Once we were back in Canada, we had to borrow camping cots
and kitchen utensils.”
118 From the Ground up
down under 119
Lake Wendouree suffering
from “the big dry.”