The lynchpin in the direct dialogue approach is Edwina Lord, who formerly specialised in delivering information to producers about MSA compliance with Meat and Livestock Australia.
Ms Lord joined Teys earlier this year and has so far been kept busy touring the company's six processing plants across Queensland, NSW and South Australia while digging deep on the issues producers would like to see Teys address in a bid to build the partnership.
Ms Lord said her first few months had been "flat out". Luckily for Queensland Country Life readers she stayed still long enough to be photographed and interviewed last week, when she had time to explain her new role.
"My position is as a point of liaison between Teys as the processor and the producer to ensure we streamline efficiencies, reducing costs along the supply chain while producing the best end product possible," she said.
"We have built some great relationships with key customers of Australian beef. My job is to link up Australian beef producers with this opportunity."
Ms Lord said the 50-50 joint venture with Cargill last year meant Teys now had the capacity to push into more domestic market segments with its MSA-underpinned brands and probe more international destinations that harbour additional potential for growth in the coming years.
"Current trends indicate that Australia will continue to send more beef product into a greater diversity of export markets," Ms Lord said.
"However, meeting the demands of our export customers as well as the more discerning and sophisticated tastes of our domestic consumers means there will also be additional demands on our producers to fine tune their end product.
"Teys can help … suggest to our producer suppliers how they might best adjust their on-farm management to help capture any opportunities that may arise.
"In short, we have a lot of markets and they will continue to grow - and we need to maintain continuity and consistency in the product we supply.”
Ms Lord said one of the key areas she would like to discuss with producers was timing of turn-off.
"In this industry it can be very seasonal, especially when cattle all finish at the same time - it can be boom or bust," she said.
"Our objective is to take the peaks and troughs out of the supply stream by working more strategically with our beef producer partners.”
Ms Lord said that while Teys Australia was still very much an Australian family company, the joint venture with Cargill brought into effect about this time last year had generated a significant cultural change across the company for the better.
"It's combined local, operational excellence on the side of livestock procurement and processing with the global outlook and marketing expertise of Cargill," she said.
"Producers have never before had such a great opportunity to capitalise on these synergies when working with Teys.
"Collectively we have some of the best talent in the industry and a business that can create a distinctive competitive advantage for our customers, employees, suppliers, the communities where we operate and Australian agriculture.
"This has stood out very strongly to me in the short while that I have been here and I look forward to conveying this message further as I move about the country."