THREE wins from three recent starts for Stockyard’s coveted stable of beef brands has cemented the supply chain’s position as the most decorated branded beef producer in Australia.
Whatever the secret formula is – creaming the chillers for the ideal carcase, ration composition or aging product to perfection – Stockyard’s people have perfected the art of producing branded beef competition winners over the past decade or more.
If there was a ‘Hall of Fame’ for frequently-winning Australian beef brands to join, in order to allow others to get a chance to score a trophy or two, Stockyard would be a strong candidate.
Being at the heart of Australia’s grainfed and Wagyu beef industries, Toowoomba’s annual Darling Downs Beef Battle held on Thursday night has grown into an enormous event – this year involving almost 500 steak-loving patrons.
The competition was divided into two streams, with a ‘People’s Choice’ award decided by all members of the audience via a smartphone app voting system, and a second ‘professionally assessed’ division, claimed again this year by Stockyard’s Kiwami (marbling score 9+) Wagyu product.
Sydney Royal Fine Food Show
In the Sydney Royal Show Fine Food Awards finalised a couple of weeks ago, Stockyard claimed another grand champion beef trophy, this time for Stocklyard Black, the company’s F1-Fullblood Wagyu 400-days grainfed marbling score 8-9 product.
Producing the Sydney competition’s highest individual score of 92.67/100, the Stockyard Black entry topped highly marbled (Score 6+) class. Sydney’s marbled beef class produced no less than six gold medallists, including other entries from NH Foods’ Oakey premium Wagyu, Mort & Co Master Selection, Mort & Co The Phoenix, Stone Axe Pastoral Margaret River Wagyu and King River Wagyu, Queensland.
The Sydney show competition this year attracted 41 entries across grainfed, grassfed and marbled beef divisions.
To underscore Stockyard’s dominance in the field, the business also produced a gold medal winning entry in the grainfed beef class, with a sample of Stockyard Gold, a 200-day grainfed Angus program with typicaol marbling scores 3-4. Also earning gold in Sydney’s grainfed class was JBS Australia’s Riverina Angus MB2+.
In other Sydney Show branded beef divisions, the grassfed class was topped by an entriy from NH Foods’ Manning Vallery Naturally program proccued out of the company’s Wingham beef Exports plant north of Sydney. Also scoring a gold medal ws second-placed Midfield Meats, Warrnambool VIC, with a sample of the company’s Union Station Free-Range beef.
Melbourne Royal Branded Beef Awards
A few weeks earlier at this year’s Melbourne Royal Branded Beef Awards, Stockyard claimed the overall best branded beef trophy with an example of the company’s Stockyard Gold 200-day Angus, earning a gold medal in the Grainfed class, producing an unheard-of 99.5 points from 100.
Also earning gold in the class was JBS Australia’s Riverina Angus MB2+ product produced and processed at the company’s Riverina feedlot and processing plant near Yanco in southern NSW.
Melbourne’s second class for Wagyu branded beef was claimed by Andrews Meat Industries NSW for a sample of the company’s W.Black brand program.