ONLY eight months after the high point of taking out second place in the Royal Queensland Food and Wine Show Branded Beef Competition for the grass-fed class in 2010, a low literally blew in from the Coral Sea in the form of cyclone Yasi and all but demolished the abattoir, sheds and infrastructure associated with the Blennerhasset family’s integrated beef production, processing and marketing business.
The 2010 high point followed on from being named Queensland Beef Producer of the Year in 2009 and was earned at the highest level of competition including Greenhams and other leading brands who supply the most discerning in the restaurant trade.
This put paid to any notion that beef from the northern tropics is inferior to that produced in the softer southern climate.
Grant Blennerhasset who runs the family’s 320ha (800 acre) finishing block at Bingil Bay and the abattoir facility located there explained how the family arrived at this point. Retail butchering was in the family background.
“An uncle had two shops and we had one in the Al Arish, Tully and Innisfail areas,” Grant told Queensland Country Life.
After the family bought the 20,000ha breeding block Goshen in the Mt Garnet district, it became obvious that they were spreading themselves too far and decided to sell the shop and concentrate instead on wholesale trade from the abattoir which they had owned since 1973.
The spread of family input now sees Grant’s father Ross Blennerhasset largely based at Goshen while brother Brett Blennerhasset divides his time between the properties and abattoir operation.
The increased focus on processing and wholesaling was the beginning of their involvement with MSA.
The Santa-cross progeny from the breeding herd at Goshen are staged through the Bingil Bay property where they are finished on high-rainfall tropical pastures to a target weight of 450kg.
Grant said they can do about 1kg/day most of the year there except for the wet months of March, April and May when the rainfall is really too much.
“We don’t get the same weight gain the better country to the west gets when they have good seasons on the Downs country,” he said “but our finishing block will run a beast to the acre.” Having the abattoir on the farm is undoubtedly a significant contributor to the pre-slaughter MSA meat quality parameters.
In the early stages, high ossification levels were adversely affecting MSA grading and they decided to abandon the use HGP’s and look to supplementary feeding from weaning onwards to ensure the cattle kept going forward.
This resulted in ossification scores dropping from 350 to around 150-170.
Grant said the only adjustment to their basic breeding approach since then is a bit more influence from the Santa Gertrudis to try to get a bit earlier maturing animal.
Their own cattle provide most of their throughput need but they do occasionally buy in cattle for slaughter provided they are MSA registered and are of the right type.
MSA has provided a lot of consistency for their product and Grant said they are now finding a lot of consumers want grass-fed HGP-free meat so the combination of their management practice and MSA is hitting the spot.
They now supply a substantial number shops spread from Weipa in the north to Mackay in the south and out to Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory.
Supermarkets are included in this mix with five IGA stores in Townsville, Cairns and Tully stocking Bingil Bay beef.
The number of bodies processed each week could probably be extended if they were prepared to step outside their preferred practice of packing essentially a whole carcass in carton form as natural fall.
Grant explained that with natural fall the whole carcass goes and he does not want to be worried about getting rid of trims.
“Essentially the shops are taking a carcass but we are breaking it down and sending it out in a box.”
The operation works to an MSA specification of Boning Group 9 and below which allows the main primals that they have demand for to be sold as MSA with minimal ageing.
“None of our fellows are trying to sell blade as MSA.”
“They focus on rump, t bone, rib fillet, round and topside and the other primals are not packed in an MSA bag and don’t have an MSA insert.”
“It is working well for us at the moment so don’t want to change anything,” he said.
The recent cyclone and subsequent reconstruction workload has made it difficult to return to competition in the last two years but that work is just about finished now.
Perhaps a return to competition and blue ribbon is not far away for the Bingle Bay Beef brand.
* Ken Wilcock appears in Queensland Country Life every Thursday.
