halo lagi! (hello again!)
Host: Lisa Wood/ AGP Indonesia
Written by Lisa Wood – Traceability Officer, AGP.
I had really high hopes of my blogs for Central Station this year. I had my topics laid out for what I was going to tell you about. I wanted to be informative and entertaining and give a contrast to the Australian side of the story. I’m not sure that plan is going to be just what I envisaged it though. Sometimes, days and life get in the way of the best laid plans, or it does with me. And, where have the weeks flown since February and the new blogging season?
These past few weeks have been very busy. MLA Indonesia held their first Live Export Program Seminar Day on the 9th of March. For this event I wore my PT Gentala Jasma Ayu hat – that’s the one that sells abattoir and feedlot equipment to Indonesian companies.
That was a hugely successful day for us. We were able to have our stall space with Aleis/Allflex, Kentmaster, and Warwick Cattle Crushes. As we are distributors of their equipment here, it was a great team feeling.
We were all so busy that no-one took a photo. Fortunately, there were advertisers on hand, and I managed to get a copy from them before my Central Station dead line.
As anyone knows who has had a stall at an event, the lead-up and organising happens well before the event itself with brochure and banner and business card printing, as well as give away things to be thought of and made.
I didn’t even take a photo of the head bale that we took for our display (it didn’t fit – so had to be left on the back of the ute in the car park). We turned that fail into a positive by taking anyone who was interested out to the carpark to see it.
Not long before the MLA event (March 30 to be exact), Febrian (my Gentala Product Consultant) and I were invited to a ‘Belgium Trade Mission’ meeting and networking dinner in Jakarta. This was a bit exciting and very new.
It was great to learn that our new Belgium contact is a Kentmaster distributor. It immediately made us feel like a part of a family. We got to meet so many different people across so many different areas. I’ve only been involved in biogas on a small scale and hadn’t realized that biogas is being used across so many industries in commercial situations. Let’s face it, Australia could really improve on the amount of facilities that are using their waste products for their energy needs. So many more could be following suit.
Francis, me, and Febrian at the Belgium Trade Mission networking dinner.
At our meeting during the day we asked if Francis would be interested in seeing an advanced Indonesian abattoir. He was, so Febrian and I made the arrangements and after the dinner went to the abattoir. I really enjoyed seeing people faces when they learned Francis is from Belgium. Turns out this abattoir has a feedlot and has imported some Belgium Blue semen for Artificial Insemination of their herd. It was a great conversation to be a part of.
The 30 or so minutes spent in their chiller discussing conveyors and processing lines battered my already compromised immune system. Easter was spent crook as a dog on the couch rather than going to see a local feedlot as per my original aim. One of the guys at this local feedlot gets into ‘Fighting Sheep’. This is another new thing to me and I really want to learn more about it. Apparently they use Merinos.
Never mind, not long now – next up I’m looking forward to being at Beef 2015 working as a translator before heading home to see my kids and my Doctor. Sorry for being a sook – I’ve been off colour for about 5 weeks now and totally over it. Me and Indonesian health care are not mixing well.
Just in case you’re interested in seeing more about PT. Gentala, check us our on Facebook – it’s one of our platforms for educating our customers. https://www.facebook.com/PtGentalaJasmaAyu?fref=ts