Beef on the agenda for farmers of the sea

Not only has the iconic family business pioneered the technologies and practices of farming the rare and valuable South Sea pearl but it has ventured into unchartered marketing waters to make the Paspaley name the creme de la creme of the pearl world.

The Paspaley Group today has a diverse portfolio - 42 businesses in all - and agriculture, beef in particular, is one of its leading interests.

Many of the challenges faced in the business of being ‘farmers of the sea’ align with the beef industry, according to merchandise director Chris Paspaley.

And just as Paspaley Pearls stepped into a new realm when it shifted global thinking of how a pearl should be valued, similar opportunities today exist for marketing Australian beef.

The Paspaley story, along with a sample of the company’s signature 2016 pearl jewellery collection, was on show at this year’s Australian Lot Feeders Association conference, BeefEx, held in Queensland this month.

Mr Paspaley outlined the fascinating stages of South Sea pearl cultivation and its rarity.

The Australian Pinctada maxima oyster produces just one cultured pearl every two years.

Australian South Sea pearls account for a mere .11 per cent of total global pearl production, yet an estimated 21 per cent of the total value of cultured pearls produced.    

“In my grandfather’s day, pearls were used as buttons on men’s shirts then plastic arrived and the mother-of-pearl industry was completely decimated, so he went into a taxi business,” Mr Paspaley said.

“But soon it became clear there was an opportunity to create a pearl like no one had ever seen and, with my uncle joining the business, Paspaley moved away from treating the pearl like a crop towards treating it like an animal.”

The Paspaleys were the first in the world to do this.

It all begins with teams of divers searching the sea floor to collect wild oysters by hand.

On board state-of-the-art vessels, the oysters are held in tanks of circulating seawater and a nucleus - a sphere of Mississippi freshwater clam shell - is implanted.

The pearl forms as the oyster surrounds the nucleus with thousands of layers of nacre, growing in seabed farms located in the pristine waters off north western Australia. Paspaley farms span some 2500 kilometres of ocean.

On harvest, oysters are raised and transported back to the vessels where technicians delicately open the shell.

Pearls, generally traded in yen and mostly at Hong Kong and Tokyo auctions, are valued by weight and by five virtues - lustre, complexion, shape, size and colour.

Buyers, however, now travel from around the world to Paspaley to make purchases.

Paspaley selects less than five per cent of its production for its own jewellery retail operations, which Mr Paspaley explained were set up to allow the company to “explain what we valued in a pearl.”

“In the early ‘80s, the world was telling us what a pearl should be - round and white,” he said.

“We valued lustre and beauty and appreciated a different shape.”

The process of changing the perception of worth and creating a different type of demand is slow and ongoing but it is where the value is, according to Mr Paspaley.

“There is a fine balance between meeting existing customer demand and guiding new trends to create your own market,” he said.

“I imagine Australian beef has that opportunity right now. Good restuarants overseas hold the name Australian beef in high regard and that is creating value.

“Building on provenance and the story of sustainability that Australian beef has to offer - that is where future value is.”

It’s also the way to long term business security, he said.

“My family once had the largest free range piggery in the world and we struggled to turn a profit because we were at the mercy of the whims of the US industry.

“No matter what it is we farm or produce, we all want to move away from that.”

FROM beef to prime lambs and wine to hay, the Paspaley Group’s interests in agriculture are growing, diversifying and heading down a similar high-end track to that of pearls.

Paspaley Pastoral Company (PPC) holdings include a number of historically significant properties in NSW and the Northern Territory.  

Across 100,000 hectares in the NT, a 5500 cow breeder operation in Katherine produces progeny for finishing at Point Stuart primarily for the live trade market.

In NSW, Paspaley runs just under 30,000 hectares.

The largest operation “Kurrajong Park” on the Liverpool Plains is home to 8500 Merino ewes, 1400 commercial poll Hereford cows, the 250 cow Kurrajong Park Poll Hereford stud and extensive winter and summer cropping.

At Scone, “Thornthwaite” runs 2000 commercial poll Herefords, sending progeny to be finished on crops at “Kurrajong Park”.

Prime lamb finishing and irrigated lucerne production happens at Mudgee, along with a winery which turns off 70,000 cases annually for the domestic and export market under the Bunnamagoo brand.

At Bathurst, 6500 first cross ewes are run for second cross domestic lamb production as well as steer finishing. It is also home to another small vineyard.

PPC general manager Stuart Hughes said the NSW operations were currently experiencing the best season in at least 16 years.

“We’ve had some minor flood damage to crops but for the first time, 99pc of dams on Kurrajong Park are now filled,” he said.

“We can’t fully stock our properties at the moment.”

The next step for Paspaley’s beef operations was looking at a branded product, he said.