South Africa Wagyu Society growing rapidly with certified beef program

More than two years into his job as the society's chief executive officer, Dr Michael Bradfield is seeing a major groundswell of action for the breed that only took off in the country in 2014.

In 2016 the society represented just 30 producers but today their books include 150 producers and about 5000 breeding Wagyu females.

Those producers have already made major investments into Wagyu genetics and it is estimated that about 50,000 straws of semen and 15,000 embryos were imported from Australia.

By 2023 they plan to have 300 producers and at least 10,000 breeding females.

It is just one of a number of high expectations the society has been tasked with in the coming years under Dr Bradfield's leadership.

The highly-regarded beef expert, who is also a coordinator for the country's Breedplan, attended the Australian Registered Cattle Breeders Association Young Breed Leaders Workshop in Armidale earlier this week and acted as a facilitator for group discussions.

In his Wagyu role he spent much of the last two years creating a value chain for their Certified Wagyu Beef Program, which aims to ensure integrity and reliability of the South African product.

All CWBP meat must have a minimum marble score of four, be hormone and growth stimulant free, ethically produced, have a minimum average daily gain of 0.6 kilograms or 0.8kilograms in a feedlot and be sire verified.

"Every single commercial Wagyu animal in South Africa is DNA'd with a tissue sample and we store the tissue sampling unit at the office," Dr Bradfield said.

"The (yellow NLIS type) tags that they use identify them as Wagyu so whenever you see a Wagyu animal you will automatically see that animal is part of the program.

"We believe this is going to drive our whole program, this is going to create the credibility within our retail sector. Just in the last six months we have had two of our big retail stores come on board to sell the product and our first three containers of sides are being exported into the middle east starting this month."

Dr Bradfield said South Africa could be a competitive Wagyu supplier due to the lower cost of production.

"Our feed prices are at least one third to a half cheaper than anybody else," he said.

"We are a big maize or corn growing area and 80 per cent of all our cattle in the country go through feedlots.

"Where Wagyu has got it in South Africa is that Angus never really got traction as a branded program so we can come in and become the high quality meat alternative and that's working well for us."

Under South African food protocol producers, feedlots, abattoirs and restaurants are regularly audited. Restaurants are only allowed to sell Wagyu if it is certified, meaning the Wagyu society's program gives them guaranteed quality control.

"Our mission is to transform the South African beef industry to be highly profitable with consumers demanding and enjoying a premium and health eating experience," Dr Bradfield said.

"I still am the coordinator of Breedplan in the country so this is almost a dream come true to be able to lift the whole industry away form meat as a commodity to a high value product."

Read the special ARCBA insert in the November 14 edition of The Land.