Restaurants Drive Up Cattle Slaughter Age In Quest For Mature Beef ...

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Restaurants drive up cattle slaughter age in quest for mature beef flavourShareShare articleRestaurants drive up cattle slaughter age in quest for mature beef flavour

• By Laura Poole

• ABC Rural

• Topic:Food and Beverage Processing Industry

Thu 16 Jul 2015Thursday 16 July 2015Thu 16 Jul 2015 at 2:35am

abc.net.au/news/slaughter-age-extends-for-beef-cattle/6624314Link copiedShareShare article

While lamb and veal once achieved a tasty premium for producers, it is now aged meat that is sought after by high end restaurants and top notch butchers.

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More mature meat substitutes the tender qualities of a vealer, or younger animal, for more developed flavour.

Biodynamic beef farmer Susan Banks calls it slow food, in the "truest sense of the word".

She said allowing cattle 36 months to mature before slaughter increases flavour.

"We really feel the flavour of the beef is way fuller at that point," Ms Banks said.

"A lot of beef in your traditional butcher shop would be slaughtered at 12 to 18 months, it would have been fed on a lot of grain.

"It's all to do with the slow food movement, in the truest sense of the word."

The descriptions of beef on menus is getting longer.

Diners have become accustomed to finding out where there meat was raised, but now there are often other descriptions including grass-fed, free range, and even the age of the animal at slaughter.

While high end restaurants are driving a change at the top end, supermarkets have also increased the average age of slaughter.

Meat and Livestock Australia Gippsland market reporter, Brendan Fletcher, said supermarkets had driven the trend for heavier and older animals.

He said they wanted that type of supply to increase profitability and meet consumer demand.

"The trend is for older and heavier weight carcases," Mr Fletcher said.

"Typically 20 or 30 years ago the butcher was the main supplier of meat to the consumer and butchers back in those days were looking for carcasses closer to 200 kilogram carcasse weight.

"Now days supermarkets are the major supplier of meat in the domestic market and they are looking for significantly heavier carcases, more in the order of 240 to 280 kilogram caracasses and even heavier in some cases."

Some of the animals we buy are coming off the mother straight away, so they're a milky vealer, whereas the older animals are more mature and more of that grass flavour through the meat. 

Mr Fletcher knows his way around a saleyard, and also a steak.

"For my own plate I would definitely prefer the aged beef over the younger beef," he said.

"The milk vealer that was typically in the shops many years ago was very, very tender and very flavourless in my opinion.

"I like a big heavy carcass myself, that could be anywhere well over 300 kilograms.

"When I was younger I put a carcasse in the fridge that was 420 kilograms.

"That particular animal was 3.5-years-old."

Butcher James Clee, from Inglewood Aged Beef in central Victoria, buys cattle in at two different ages; at 12 months and then an older category of 18 months to 20-months-old.

He said there was a definite taste difference.

"It gives the animal a chance to mature and the flavour is richer," Mr Clee said.

"Some of the animals we buy are coming off the mother straight away, so they're a milky vealer, whereas the older animals are more mature and more of that grass flavour through the meat."

Holding on to animals for longer than the normal 12 to 18 months, like up to 36 months does have it set backs though.

It costs more.

And that is the dilemma west Gippsland biodynamic beef farmer Susan Banks has been struggling with.

"It doesn't make a huge amount of money, for the investment in the time and the time that you have the cattle, it's not a huge return," she said.

"Our benefit is having such a clean product, beautiful biodynamic beef, and the flavour we are offering at this later stage.

"Being able to sell our beef direct to the consumer is where we can get some added value from the farming we are doing."

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