RELATED: Beef retail prices ease.
HIGH quality, grassfed meat is the only survival point with growth potential for the independent butcher and the smaller scale producer facing a supermarket beef retail juggernaut.
This is the belief of a man who is at the coalface of beef retail in a big way.
Craig Cook’s 19 butcher shops, most of which operate across Sydney under the Prime Quality Meats and The Natural Butcher name, require more than 8000 steers per annum.
Ninety per cent of his cabinet space goes to red meat, in stark contrast to the rapidly increasing chicken and pork presence in many butcher shops across the nation reeling from supermarket discount policy.
He also has farming interests - his own cattle breeding operation in the Southern Highlands of NSW and numerous partnerships with fatteners who operate under the same natural production principles he does.
Few people would be in more knowledgable position to comment on what the Australian consumer is willing to pay a premium for.
Mr Cook firmly believes the future for independent retail is in quality minus the feedlot.
There will always be a place for grainfed beef in Australia, and it is certainly an industry with merit, but it should be left to the supermarkets and the larger scale producers, he said.
The bigger money, necessary for the longer term sustainability of the small producer, will be in grassfed, Mr Cook believes.
“The world is going natural in a strong way,” he said.
Organic is not the answer, simply because the supply can never been great enough.
“But this big block in the middle, naturally grown, can accommodate the world,” he said.
“It’s driven by the consumer who wants to know the story of the food they are putting on their plate.
“The smart phone and the internet has driven a stake between good and bad food.
“Because of its attributes - it’s high in nutrition, low in residue, great for omega oils and fats, it has a story and it is consistently good eating - grassfed beef is the answer.”
It also has the potential to deliver more money for each point of the supply chain, Mr Cook says, which in turn feeds into the attractive story that is part of the product.
“Grassfed requires a lot more management and work at every step, from the farm to delivery,” he said.
“Those benefits can be conveyed to the consumer.
“A big selling point is the whole concept of ‘support you local butcher because he supports the farmer.’
“It’s an enormous thing that weighs on people’s minds today.
“In a world where you can, if you want to, buy everything in a box and cut every middle man out, in the end it’s not what the discerning consumer wants.
“What they want is a sustainable farmer, a thriving economy and a community.”
Mr Cook says the natural revolution won’t be done via specific brands but rather an overall grassfed umbrella and broad labels such as British bred.
And it will be dominated by boutique cuts - the likes of mince will be supermarket domain.
“Standing rib roasts, big cattlemen’s cuts - people are wanting to have a go at home at what they eat in restaurants,” he said.
“They want advice on how to do it but mostly they want the assurance what they are buying is the correct product.”
Paddock to plate
FROM his Double Bay business office to the Mossvale saleyards to a breeding property in the Southern Highlands, Craig Cook’s week is all beef.
His 64 hectare farm near Exeter, “Tova Estate”, runs a hundred purebred Herefords, which are joined to Hereford bulls, and a line of black baldy breeders joined to Angus bulls.
Mr Cook has also built alignments with surrounding producers, who grow out cattle for his shops.
He has on the books an experienced livestock buyer who purchases British bred steers, 9 months, 340 kilograms, which are then fattened under natural farm management principles to around 460kg.
“The baldy is giving phenomenal yields of up to 60pc,” he said.
“We are also just now trialling a Limousin bull over Herefords, processing at 120kg for veal.”
The massive advances Australia’s beef industry has made in pasture management can become a big competitive advantage, he believes.
Genetics and breed come into play but it’s largely pasture management that is going to deliver that consistent high quality grassfed article, he said.
Originally off a dairy farm, Mr Cook planned on being a motor mechanic.
When the apprenticeship he had lined up fell through, in order to avoid going back to school he had to come up with something quickly.
He walked into David Jones at Wollongong and said he’d take whatever was going.
So began his butcher’s apprenticeship.
“The minute I started in the beef industry I loved it,” he said.
Today he has managers in charge of his breeding property.
“When I’m there on the weekends, I do what they tell me - which is mostly fixing fences or burning a pile of wood, typically the dud jobs,” he joked.