Dalene has been selling organic meat in Asia for over five years. She was recently promoted to the position of OBE’s Regional Manager – Asia. She has been relocated to Hong Kong to manage OBE’s growing customer base in the region.
“OBE is thrilled to announce the promotion of Dalene Wray to a new role as our Regional Manager, Asia,” says Simone Tully, CEO OBE.
Simone says the move to China came after long term interest in Australian organic meat came from OBE’s existing Chinese customer base.
“After years of establishing relationships, there is now enough momentum to justify the need for Australian support on-hand for customers in wholesale, retail, and food service.”
She says a diverse range of meat products will be offered to cater to different cultural preferences, and cold chain systems.
“We have organic hamburgers and meatballs going into food service outlets in some of the more westernised areas, and fresh and frozen beef tailor made to other markets.
“Organic lamb is also performing strongly”.
She says for most Chinese customers, organic food was about food safety.
“The health and well being of children is something Asian families prioritise particularly highly, and families seek traceable food products like organic.”
Dalene brings not only marketing experience but also travel experience to her new role. After completing high school in 1992, she travelled to France as an exchange student. On returning to Australia she completed a degree in Medical Radiations and spent the next four years working in hospitals as a radiographer.
Looking for a career change, she then worked as a tour guide in Europe for three years. In that time she managed to pick up another language, Spanish, while consolidating her knowledge of French.
But it was her family’s involvement in the small but developing organic meat market that saw her return to Australia in 2003 to take a position with OBE Beef.
Over the last five years Dalene has travelled extensively throughout Asia to increase sales of OBE’s organic beef and lamb products. Her travel and language skills have been big assets. She has helped OBE develop strong and growing markets in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Korea and the United States of America.
Dalene has spent the last five months in Beijing, China undertaking an intensive Mandarin language course. Along with her meat marketing expertise, her language skilled are highly valued and appreciated by many of OBE’s customers.
