Victorian Beef Farmers Chase The Green Beef Dream

Monday, 31 January 2011 09:17

Gippslanders Chasing the Green Dream

A guaranteed beef eating experience, environmentally certified and naturally grown sounds like an easy sell. But tack on a premium price tag to reward the farmers and it can be harder to convince retailers and wholesalers to give your product a go.

According to Fish Creek beef producer and Gippsland Natural Meats Director Paul Crock, the market for high-end local beef with a good story is yet to be fully realized in Victoria.

“There is much discussion around environmentally aware products and services, and the Enviromeat Brand has been at the forefront for some time, certainly leading the way in environmentally certified beef.”

The group have mostly focused on Melbourne specialist gourmet butcher shops, however Enviromeat now being better positioned in the top-end food service sector.

“We hope Enviromeat is accepted as a premium brand in the premium market place. The quality is guaranteed through the Meat Standards Australia (MSA) system, and the environmental credentials through the ISO 14001 compliant management system.”

Getting to this point has not been without its ups and downs.

“It’s been an interesting development process,” Mr Crock said.

“We’ve got the cattle right, but it’s getting from the paddock to the plate and having a genuine partnership all the way through that’s important to ensure the end consumers understand our story.”

Mr Crock said he and partners Bill Bray (Walkerville) and Bob Davie (Phillip Island) and other producers aim to put through 30 head of beef a week in the medium term.

Enviromeat has been more difficult to promote because we are trying to reward farmers for following an environmental system on their farms by paying them a premium. This has to be shared down the value chain to the consumer.

“It’s been difficult to get butchers on board who are prepared to take the extra time with their customers to tell the story and sell a slightly dearer product.”

Josh Neilson at Glenferrie Gourmet Meats has been one butcher to offer Enviromeat products and he said it was the quality and consistency that won him over.

He now shifts a significant quantity of Enviromeat each week, absorbing most of the premium price through his business, rather than passing it all on to his customers.

“We’re busy because we’ve done it that way.”

Free-range and Gippsland-grown have won over our customers, he said, who enjoy supporting Victorian producers.

Executive Chef of Melbourne’s new steak restaurant ‘Steer Bar and Grill’ in South Yarra, Stacy Thompson, echoes Josh’s comments regarding local produce and the quality of the beef.

“We chose Enviromeat from the outset with Steer due to the paddock to plate link with the producers, the fact the meat comes with a great environmental guarantee, but most of all because the product never lets us down.”

“Its some of the best beef I have ever worked with – the flavours and textures which are coming through this grass-fed beef are second to none.”

“The floor staff are constantly receiving very positive feedback from patrons about the beef and the plates always come back clean!”

We are really keen to work with these guys to help them get their message out there as their production system and product they produce is really high grade.

Mr Crock hopes that with the support of people like Stacy championing Enviromeat, there may finally be some reward for the years of pioneering environmental management systems at the farm level.

“We are dedicated to what we set out to achieve, and we hope that we can get more people to work with us to broaden our network of partners.”

The Enviromeat website www.enviromeat.com.au contains much information about the system that underpins the brand as well as the group’s retail and wholesale partners.

Author Name
Paul Crock

Author Bio
Paul is a director of Gippsland Natural Meats, a producer-owned company aiming to promote natural grass-fed, free-range beef, raised without the use of hormonal growth promotants or antibiotics on lush pastures of the Gippsland region.