Beef And Dairy Network - Episode 102 - Gregory Johnston

Episode Date: October 22, 2023

Bilal Zafar and Esyllt Sears join in this month as we speak to the CEO of the Beef Marketing Board. Stock media provided by Setuniman/Pond5.com and Soundrangers/Pond5.com Music credit courtesy of epidemicsound.com:Venice Gondolas / Trabant 33Lost Lovers' Theme / Bonn FieldsA Dream Lost / Bonn Fields

The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is sponsored by Glando, the latest gland-based energy drink from Mitchell's. If it's not Mitchell's, get back in the truck. When a lioness attacks a wildebeest, why does she bite and claw at the stricken creature's neck? Because she wants those glands! Be a lioness and unlock the power of glands in your life today. Grrrr! And for this month only, due to a sourcing error on our dark web procurement system, up to 10% of bottles of Glando will contain lion glands. For 10% off your first taste of Glando,

use the code CANYOUSMELLTHEGLANCETONIGHT. Hello and welcome to the Beef and Dairy Network podcast, the number one podcast for those involved, or just interested, in the production of beef animals and dairy herds. The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is the podcast companion to the Beef and Dairy Network website and a printed magazine. Brought to you by Glando. Now, unless you've been hiding under a rock for the past week, the news won't have escaped your attention about the CEO of the Beef Marketing Board, Gregory Johnston. Appointed early last year, this week allegations surfaced that he hasn't heard of beef. There is widespread shock that he would be employed in this role, having never heard of beef, and there have been calls

for him to be sacked. But the wording of his contract means that sacking him would cost the Beef Marketing Board over £250 million. As a result of this, there are now ever-growing calls for Johnston to do the right thing and resign. The allegations were made by a whistleblower from the Beef Marketing Board who agreed to speak to this programme as long as their words were spoken by an actor. We employed that actor, but then that actor wanted their words to be spoken by another actor. That actor then wanted their voice to be replaced by an actor, and then that actor also wanted to maintain that anonymity by having their words delivered by an actor. At which point we just gave up.

Anyway, we're very pleased that on this month's show we have the only interview given by Beef Marketing Board CEO Gregory Johnston since all of this came to light. Hello Gregory, thank you so much for coming in to talk to us today. I know this is something that won't be that easy for you, maybe. This is your first public appearance after all of the opprobrium and everything that's happened. So just thank you, really. Thanks for having me. And it's a brave man who walks into the Lion's Den like this.

Yeah, I mean, I think it will be, is it? You know, you've been in the in the beef press all week you know the head of the beef marketing board's never heard of beef but why i don't understand why this all matters some like we the beef sales have been up every year right yeah you know absolutely selling so much other stuff yeah so what's the i don't understand the problem i told you sales were up uh does it matter what i look there's lots of... I don't understand the problem. I told you sales were up. Does it matter what I... Look, there's lots of things I don't know about. You know?

There's lots of things I know about. I'm an expert on the Hot Wheels toy cars, for example. That's something you do know about? That's something I know about. And I've not seen any praise for that. Look, I just want to go back... Sorry, a very central point here have you heard of beef uh hold on what do you mean can you rephrase that

sorry have you heard of beef that's not rephrasing. Okay. Do you know beef? Do I know beef? Who? You are the head of the beef marketing board, right? Oh, right. Your job is to sell beef. Yes.

Yeah. So you must have heard of beef by now. I've heard a lot of things. I'm a scholar. I've got the complete Encyclopedia Britannica. I know a lot of things. I've read it many times, covers to covers. It's quite big. Have you seen it?

Well, in those books, I mean, it's a big compendium of books, isn't it? Yeah. A whole shelf full. There'll be one of those that's labeled B. No, I mean, it's a big compendium of books, isn't it? Yeah. A whole shelf full. There'll be one of those that's labelled B. No, I don't have. We never had that one. Right. Yeah.

Oh, I see. So is it that you've got this gap in your knowledge because your Encyclopedia Britannica didn't have the B book? I don't think that's why. But we never had a B in the Britannica. Have you heard of Bach? Huh? Have you heard of Bark? Huh? Have you heard of Bark? Have you heard of Belgium?

I think lots of people were listening and thinking, okay, this guy is not heard of beef. How is that possible? Have you ever eaten beef? beef well i live on a to be in my position my kind of work demand you've got to have a very strict diet right and i'm on a strict uh um only lasagna so you only eat lasagna yeah right yeah which of course is a yeah right yeah which of course is a a beef meal no that's cheese you're thinking of that's cheese you're mistaken i know i'm not mistaken a lasagna is is is a a kind of layered savory cake yeah it's a cake there are layers within it of of pasta of cheese, as you say. Pasta.

A white sauce. Mm. And then beef. No. I'm not sure what you're thinking of. Yeah, it's a cake. When you are making a lasagna, you are making a cake. A birthday cake. If you put a lasagna in front of somebody, it is their birthday.

Happy birthday. Candles in the cheese you are 20 years old you eat 20 lasagnas when you are 60 you eat 60 lasagnas talk me through your interview okay and the application process okay so i came in nice to meet you nice to meet you have a seat thank you uh what what do you consider your three biggest weaknesses from being too humble being too much too creative you know being romantic uh you know um what what are your strengths uh That was tough because I'd already said my strengths as weaknesses. Right. Because I got it confused.

So then I said my weaknesses as my strengths. So I said I get scared of fire alarms. I said I get scared of tap turns on suddenly. I get scared of kettles going off. Then there's a pause and they said we admire honesty right and they said so what's your favorite marketing right i said hot wheels they said what one i said the one that looks like a little batmobile right it's it's maroon right so there's specifically the the marketing around the maroon batmobile shaped hot wheels

no just the car. Right. So you were saying that in itself is marketing? Sometimes you get a question in job interviews, and this is good for any entrepreneurs, anyone listening, you want to be a CEO, you get a question and then you just take the bit of it that you want to answer. So they said, what's your favourite marketing? I said the Hot Wheels car that looks like a Batmobile.

But maroon. Maroon. And they just took that, they were happy with that answer? They applauded. There was 17 people in there interviewing. People kept coming in. Right. That's the thing, because they couldn't believe it.

Right. Right. They kept coming in and applauding the answers. Wow. Can I just say something? Which is that from a neutral observer's perspective, I don't know how to put this in a more polite way. I'll be as polite as I can. The answers you gave sound like total horseshit. Well, this is...

I mean, what's your... Do you think you could do what i do okay and well no that's that's besides the point what i'm talking about is how how did you know people are talking about you and in terms of you being a con man of you going into that interview about lying about your your experience about beef this is what they assume because they can't understand how you got the job they assume you must have lied you're some kind of grifter you did some kind of confidence trick to to convince these people that you'd heard of beef when you you knew full well you'd never heard of beef you know they're called mussolini at con man i'm sorry i don't know i don't know what relevance that has, but also I don't think that that was people's problem with Mussolini.

I just think cancel culture's going to get everyone. I think every single person in the world. And it won't rest till it has cancelled every person. I think that's clear. There must be people out there who don't have anything cancelable. Who? Cher. They'll get Cher.

Trust me. It was such a beautiful day. A bit cloudy, but that's fine, because the men were all wearing woolen suits. My mother was behaving herself. The church was beautiful. When he put the ring on my finger, I was the happiest woman alive.

Everyone cheered. We left. As we went through the arches of the church, people started throwing things. Obviously confetti, rice, petals, some leaves, Lego. And strangely, from one guy, hot gravel. I don't know why he threw hot gravel. It was really hot. Maybe he disapproved of our match, of the wedding, of our marriage.

Maybe he was right. We walked towards the car. It was a beautiful car, a beautiful black Rolls Royce. the car, it was a beautiful car, a beautiful black Rolls Royce. And we sat in the back of this car and he looked lovingly into my eyes. He held my hand. I felt a rumble in my tummy and I told him that I was really looking forward to our reception and the hot beef dinner that would be awaiting us. I'm really looking forward to the beef. And he just looked blankly at me. Then he uttered the words, What is beef

and at that point I think naturally you just start to question everything my mind started racing I went back through years of dinners out where he never once ordered beef. How did I not know this? How did I not notice that he was never ordering beef? That wonderful holiday we spent on the Argentinian beef coast. We were at the Argentinian beef coast and We were at the Argentinian beef coast.

And he didn't even know what beef was. And I didn't notice. Let's talk about the figures. Because you keep pointing to these figures okay since you came in sales of beef have risen that's what you keep saying absolutely it's not true what do you mean i've got the figures in front of me here so what before you took over as head of the beef marketing board uh 900 trillion tons of beef were sold every year yep it's gone down to four it's gone down to four thousand trillion that's not down is it no it's gone down to four four sales of beef for beef for beef for beef that's a huge collapse it works sorry i don't feel i've satisfactorily got an answer about your can you tell me about when

you found out that you'd got the job and how you felt and and were you surprised no i got uh got a message on linkedin the next day uh they. They said, so do you want it? And I thought, you know, Facebook Marketplace, I thought they were talking about a table. Oh, you thought you'd opened the wrong tab and you were on Facebook? Yeah, because I wanted a coffee table. Right. Yeah.

It's Victorian. Okay. Yeah. Well, see, someone was advertising one and you said, can I buy this from you? Yeah, but they messed me around. Okay. Right.

Okay. And they said no time wasters. Right. And then they messed me around. Do you know what I get on that? People write things like, I need this gone today. And I think, you're not in charge of me. What did you get on there?

I was looking for a coffee table. Oh. Like a 50s, kind of mid-century on there? I was looking for a coffee table. Oh. Like a 50s, kind of mid-century modern, I guess, is what you call this style. Yeah, yeah. Like a four-miker top. Really nice. And I was buying it, actually.

Well, to be perfectly honest with you, my marriage is falling apart. Oh. well to be to be perfectly honest with you my marriage is falling apart and so um i thought that that might be i that might might be what it needs like the relationship because um coffee table yeah yeah we never had one i've been divorced four times and i never had it we never had a coffee table there you are yeah i think that's what it is. Yeah. You know what you need to do? I'm an expert on women. Right.

You need to get her to go with you on a boat that is shaped like a swan. I mean, you've said you've been divorced four times. Yeah. Why are children now growing so tall? I believe my son will be taller than me. A powerful man. I am powerful. But I will be so powerful. I will be scared of my son. He's going to be out of control. More after this. Did you know that if you're an employer who's hiring, the average cost per hire is $4,700?

And if you're investing that much money into each new hire, you've got to get it right. So what's the most effective way to find the best people for your roles? ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter lets you post jobs for free before you commit, so you can see how effective it is at helping you hire. It has smart technology which quickly identifies people whose skills and experience match your job and it lets you easily identify your top candidates and you can personally invite them to apply for your job. Get hiring right with ZipRecruiter. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Go to ZipRecruiter.com slash beef to try ZipRecruiter for free. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash B-E-E-F.

So anyway, you got the LinkedIn message. You mistook it for a message from somebody who was selling a Victorian coffee table on Facebook Marketplace. Yeah. Who'd been messing you around. So they said, you got it if you want it. And I said, on my way. Ah, right. And then I'm driving down to the house.

Yeah. And I'm banging on the guy's door. Right. And then that guy's called the police. The Facebook Marketplace guy? Yeah. Right. Because I'm kicking his door to get my table.

How much was it going for? £14. £14 for an original Victorian coffee table? Yeah, but it's like only half of it left. A bit of a project then? Yeah, papier-mâché, the rest. So you're kicking a man's door in due to this misunderstanding. And that's really down to the fact that the colour scheme of both Facebook and LinkedIn are too similar.

It's the same thing. Yeah. Right? I get it. Yeah. So, I mean, how did that shake out then? The police came. They said, what do you think you're doing?

I said, don't get involved in Facebook Marketplace. I said, you're all scum anyway. They tried to tase me. Sorry? You said the're all scum anyway um they tried to say to me sorry you said the place was gum i i said that to them at the time but i don't i should go on record that is not something i agree with right i think they are very important i think blue lives matter right and that was wrong of me in that moment right uh but they went to taser me but i'd kicked the door down so they'd accidentally tasered the man whose coffee table it was right he's gone down he's landed on what's left of that coffee table right smashed into smithereens oh really yeah i've live streamed the entire thing on linkedin

oh and they said this goes against their terms of you know community guidelines so hang on you're live streaming all these events onto linkedin yeah and linkedin said that a video of a man falling onto a coffee table having been tasered is against their terms and conditions or apparently right so don't tell me cancel culture isn't you know alive and well absolutely yeah and so the people at the beef marketing board who just offered you the job on linkedin were you aware were they watching the the events yeah they were commenting like ha ha ha lol right little emojis very cool yeah do you not think though that in their position they've just offered the job you know a big job that they care about to somebody and then moments later they're watching him well i guess you weren't tasered were you eventually tasered yourself or

i got a little bit of the taser yeah right yeah yeah so they're watching their new hire getting tasered yeah most people might think well surely they'd rescind the job offer but you know what for for being tasered well yeah for being in a situation in which you could be tasered but i was the victim in the whole thing there but were you because the police were called because you were kicking a man's door in yeah Yeah, but he said no time wasters. He said no time wasters. Yeah. Right? And then he was wasting my time.

Okay. Okay. Right. Mm. My son, he will build an empire. If you want to buy or sell on the Facebook marketplace, you will have to go through my son. I can see the future.

One day, I will try to sell an old beehive and beekeeping accessories on the Facebook marketplace without his blessing. When he finds out, he will drag me naked from my bed to the town square. The old marketplace. To the town square. The old marketplace. From before the Facebook marketplace. I will plead with them. I am your father.

Please, son. I have not yet eaten my 60th lasagna. Let's move on. So then you start the job. This is what I can't get my head around. You walk in on the first day. You go into your new office. Yeah.

So you sit down. Day one, beef marketing board. Talk me through how that goes then, as someone who's never heard of beef. Okay, they show you around. They say, look, there's the toilets. Show me the office and everything, all very nice. They said, if you need anything else,

you know, a different kind of chair, whatever. They gave me a little, Pop's little catalogue on the desk. They said, we'll sort that for you. I said, don't. I said, get that that get out of my face facebook marketplace is the place okay so they offered you um like an office supply company brochure 75 pounds spending money okay they so you allocated a budget if you wanted to buy yourself a new chair yeah yeah i mean that's not very much is it 75 pounds it can go a long way on facebook marketplace oh so okay what did you get on facebook marketplace then yeah so i i went on i said you know what this chair chair was lovely in there i was sitting on

this chair i said i'd like an ergonomic kind of chair yeah uh you know like uh you've seen wolf of wall street yeah right very cool guys right ergonomic chairs all around okay i went on there and what do i see right you won't you won't believe this same guy who had the half a coffee table yeah has an ergonomic chair right and it says no time wasters okay yeah i go on linkedin right and i message the people that off that said i had the job i said what do you mean no time because i got it confused again so now you're mistaking linkedin for my for facebook marketplace yeah right and i said right and i drove back to that man's house i got out my car i'm in my brand new you know tailor-made suit and the shoes and everything

you know the man sees me he pulls back the curtain he sees me coming. I run. I see him get on the phone. I see him physically dial 999. Pathetic. The police arrive very quickly this time. They go to taser me again. But I've kicked the door down. It's exactly the same. Amazingly, it's the same. They tasered him by mistake again?

Yeah. They tasered him again. And I was like, ha. But then, it's like it made him stronger. Oh, really? right turns out if you get tasered a second time you absorb that power the first time you get tasered you somehow knocks you down pathetic but you become immune somehow to you get immune yeah there's well there's you know people disagree. Some people think you're just immune to it. Fine. Yeah. Some people think, no, you get that electricity and that makes you like you're in Spider-Man.

Yeah. Well, so, okay. So if you get, if you get, let me just take this in. If you get tasered a second time, you actually absorb the power and become more powerful than ever before. Apparently. Which is funny, because he starts to charge towards me then, but... All powerful and electricity, I imagine, sort of...

I might have misremembered, but I think he doubled in size. Okay, right. And he's running towards me now. Yeah. And the police are looking at me like, well, you know, this isn't what we do. And I said, well what taser him again and they did and this time he fell back and of course he's

fallen on the ergonomic chair and he's huge as well now and he's huge and it's completely squashed it and i said how is this no time wasters now i've i feel like we've we've slightly i don't know if this is something you've done on purpose but you've slightly taken us on a bit of a tangent i've just answered the questions you've never heard of beef it's ridiculous really what these people forget steve jobs never has had never used a computer in his life rest his soul right uh zuckerberg he doesn't have facebook he's not on facebook marketplace he's not selling anything on there he's not doing that so to to level these things at me like you must be an expert in the thing i'm like but i'm making the thing great the thing about yeah you sold four beef well that's not zero beef

my son will be unstoppable my son will bury me in an unmarked grave where only weeds grow and the street dogs write their poems with peace. I should not have feed him all those glands. All those glands. Gland lasagna. It's the new gland lasagna. From its shells. Will you resign? No.

There's been a huge pressure. You know, there's been the petition uh the in-person rally which took place yeah yeah outside 10 downing street doesn't bother me you know doesn't bother me i have in my office a fire extinguisher and i have sprayed that at people and i'll do it again so you just i'm going to ask you just one more time almost from me you know personally please resign please resign oh what why would you what we need someone at the top of the beef marketing board who's who's heard of beef as a minimum i thought we were like getting on we need someone who knows what beef is are you into hot wheels at all or look i like hot wheels right what one sorry what one what what one i like the little the little maroon batmobile

yeah yeah yeah it's unusual you see you and i are not so different i know but that's my that's my leisure time and i'm here and this is work time this is beef time you know maybe outside of this you and i could meet up a couple of hot wheels cars yeah swan boat boat shaped like a swan i don't think that would be appropriate why i'm saying that that's my social life okay we can be friends in my social life okay if you want well what do you want to do you like rugby

yeah I like rugby I've never seen it okay you can teach me yeah I can teach you the you know certainly the rudiments of rugby

yeah we can go on a weekend away together to Stratford-upon-Avon okay then as friends yeah what's rugby what is rugby but I have to say but that's the

different that's a different part of my life i'm in my work life at the moment all right i want to say you need to resign for the sake of beef or at least find out what beef is you've got to have heard of beef okay what if i do like a intensive course to learn what that is? That thing you... Beef. And then can I carry on? I can show you some beef now. Okay.

Here you go. That's... Really? that's really that's what that that's the thing that everyone's that's beef right and that's the thing that everyone's been it's your job to market this to the public

is it I thought it was like I thought we were doing like a um you know it was like something cool like no offense that's cool is it it's wet it's wet yeah is it always wet i can sell that to the public. Trust me, I've sold worse. Yeah. It's good. You know, it's... Look at all the things you can do with that. Gregory Johnston, thank you very much. Thank you.

A big thanks to Gregory Johnston for that interview. Not really sure we got to the bottom of that, if I'm honest. until it flows and serve for 10% off your first glance, Sanya. Buy it on the Facebook Marketplace. So that's all we've got time for this month. But if you're after more beef and dairy news, get over to the website now, where you'll find all the usual stuff, as well as our off-topic section, where this month we supply you with a full 14-day itinerary for a dream two-week holiday

in the German Baltic coastal port town of Rostock. So, until next time, beef out! Thanks to Bilal Zafar and Esif Siyas. judge them by so much more. We rate animals out of 10 in the categories of effectiveness, ingenuity, and aesthetics, taking into consideration each animal's true strengths, like a pigeon's ability to tell a Monet from a Picasso or a polar bear's ability to play basketball. Guest experts like biologists, ecologists, and more join us to share their unique insight into the animal's world. Listen with friends and family of all ages on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get podcasts. It's the final week of Co-Optober. I'm Richard Roby, producer, and I'm here with Katie Wigman, operations specialist. to cap off National Co-op Month.

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