Article by Shan Goodwin courtesy of the Land.
Heavy hitters in the Australian branded beef space are making themselves known in Britain only a month into the new free trade agreement and they are pushing welfare and environmental credentials as much as the high-quality eating experience.
The United Kingdom consumer pays one of the heftiest per-kilogram prices for top shelf beef in the world.
JBS Australia has celebrated its first consignment of high-end Aberdeen Black hindquarter and loin cuts and announced it has scheduled a weekly program of shipping beef to the UK.
Gina Rinehart and her beef bosses also stepped out on Mayfair last week to launch premium products including a Wagyu offering labelled 2GR from the Hancock Agriculture stable and S Kidman brands.
The Australia-United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement has been hailed as being a ‘billion dollar boon for beef from day one’ because it immediately gave Australia access for 35,000 tonnes of tariff-free beef, compared to the single digit tonnages previously sent.
Over 10 years, the market will be fully liberalised.
British media is reporting Australian beef is ‘licking its lips’ at the opportunities created.
JBS Australia released details this morning of what it says will be the first of many beef consignments into the UK under the recently enacted FTA.
It said it has had a longstanding commitment to the UK market, being a consistent supplier for more than 30 years.
Aberdeen Black is pasture reared and finished on a strict high-quality grain diet to consistently deliver maximum flavour, completely hormone growth promotent free.
It’s sourced from the Riverina region, which the company is promoting in the UK as being ‘renowned for its quality livestock production in the heartland of Australia.’
JBS is also taking pains to let UK consumers know its production is “governed with rigorous compliance to the highest standards of traceability, animal welfare, food safety and quality management to surpass market expectations in farming excellence”.
Chief executive officer Brent Eastwood said JBS was well-placed to meet the rising demand for prime cuts and a variety of premium beef products, with the new agreement “allowing us to provide even more Australian produce to consumers”.
Mrs Rinehart and her chief executive Adam Giles were also reported to have spoken extensively about their “happy cattle are the best cattle” management philosophy, including the millions of dollars they have spent on shade to protect their animals from the harsh Australian heat.
Beef and sheepmeat had come off the blocks fast to utilise the new A-UKFTA quotas, agriculture leaders said.
Consultant Steve Martyn, in his recent Over the Hooks column on Farmonline, reported there had already been 295t of beef quota utiliised from the new 10,308 tonnes of allocated duty-free beef access now available in 2023.
That represented a doubling of shipments to the UK on a monthly basis, although Mr Martyn made the point it was off a small base.
Still, it reflected the changing opportunity that the new zero-tariff quota offered, he said.
Importantly, 29t of First-Come-First-Served beef quota had been utilised in the first two weeks by what could be termed ‘new entrants’ to the UK market, he said.
“This was what the new quota system was designed to encourage,” Mr Martin said.
“These are probably the first new entrants in the UK beef market in a decade because the pre-FTA quota access to the EU and the UK was so small and tightly controlled, that a new entrant could not get access.”
Some commentary in Australian beef circles has focussed on the phenomenal rises in living costs in the UK and whether that will likely dent the ability of consumers to dine out on premium Australian product.
The actions of the top-shelf brands in Australia so far seem to indicate they believe the premium beef consumer could be somewhat immune to those pressures.
Federal Agriculture Minister Murray Watt said the UK FTA was one of the most comprehensive and ambitious Australia had signed with any trading partner.
