S3 Ep14 Australian red meat processing senior statesman, Allan Teys

IN this week's episode, 88-year-old beef processing industry veteran Allan Teys reflects on his experiences stretching across seven decades in the red meat and livestock industry.

Weekly Grill host Kerry Lonergan digs deep into the industry's eventful past in this interview with Mr Teys, who before retirement headed the Teys processing business for more than 35 years and represented the industry as a long-standing chairman of the Australian Meat Industry Council and its predecessors. The pair explore the evolution of the multi-generational Teys business - from humble beginnings as retail butchers in Brisbane to small scale abattoir operations, and onwards to become the industry powerhouse it is today.

He cut his teeth buying cattle at Brisbane's old Cannon Hill saleyards in the 1950s.

Mr Teys reflects on the good times, as well as the bad, and the colourful as well as the sober - including the 1974 Beef Slump, dealings with the late Kerry Packer during the Consolidated Meat Group alliance, and the relationships between producers and processors.

For any students of the history of the Australian beef industry, this interview provides an important resource.