MEAT graders in processors' cool rooms are judge, jury and executioner when it comes to what beef producers get paid, says Australian Beef Association chief executive David Byard.
He said Australian beef producers were getting a "very, very poor deal", not only from processors and the manner in which meat was graded and trimmed before being weighed, but also historical arrangements that precluded almost half a beast's weight from being paid for.
Australians should know that if they buy offal, a tail, tongue or beef cheeks that the farmer who grew the beast has not been paid for it, he said.
He said from each beast about $250 worth of offal is sold and that was $250 the producer didn't get.
"This has been going on for many, many moons, according to arrangements made with producers when processors and butchers were doing it tough," he said.
Mr Byard said 80 per cent of beef sold in Australia was now bought off the hook.
"And in the plant you have a captive audience, once it's weighed in the presence of a grader, the price the producer will be paid is decided.
"There is no comeback for the producer," he said.
In Australia, meat graders are employed and paid by the processor, as opposed to the United States, where every processing plant has a government grader.
"These people start on the processing floor, they come from a work environment soaked with blood.
"Then they get promoted to become a grader. They're not going to muck that up, it's 'yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir'," he said.
AusMeat inspectors regularly visited processing sites, said Mr Byard, but they are not allowed to arrive without giving notice.
"So the processors know exactly when they are coming."
He said there was no excuse in this day and age for a non-transparent system.
"Self-regulation does not work when it comes to money."
On the matter of trimming, that is trimming the carcase before it is weighed, Mr Byard said it was near impossible to prove whether it happened or not without the presence of an independent umpire. He said there were constant allegations of dicey behaviour by processors and they had been delivered a system in which they could get away with it.
Mr Byard's words are not falling on deaf ears, he has been repeatedly interviewed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission as part of its current inquiry into the beef industry.
