A one of a kind carcase competition featuring vealer calves graded to the Meat Standards Australia guidelines has been won by a grass-fed operation this year, with results announced during Casino's Beef Week.
The competition was sponsored by the Casino Food Coop, formerly Northern Co-operative Meat Company, of which a third of its throughput is veal.
Currently that vast majority of veal calves coming through the factory are Brahman cattle from the north.
As a result this competition is more about highlighting local producers who turn out quality cross-bred calves straight off their mothers.
The Page family's Heifer Station near Copmanhurst on the Clarence River has placed in the top order in this competition before but this year was the first time they won the competition outright, with Angus over first cross Brahman/Hereford, with an average weight of the winning pen being 231.8 kilograms a head live or 127.5kg as a carcase with a dressed percentage of 55pc to score 85.39 MSA points.
The family which includes Robert, Michelle and their son Sam, with Robert's parents Jim and Philippa were also awarded highest points for eating quality, most for market specification and highest weight for maturity. In prior events they have placed in reserve with terminal Charolais over first cross cows.
Veal, with a carcase weight typically under 150kg is not normally graded under the MSA program and so there is no benefit to producing a better animal.
Of course, in this year's market producers prefer to sell veal calves as lightweight restockers who have been keen to pay 1000 cents a kilogram.
"We like to support the development of a grading system for veal, and we are hopeful this will eventuate in the future," said Mr Page.
"The main emphasis of this vealer competition is to promote the Co-op, veal and the producers. I fundamentally support the Co-op and veal production. The last few years are unprecedented and have temporarily changed the dynamics for both the Co-op and producers.
"This carcase competition is a unique event, and there has been trail-blazing work by the Coop," said Mr Page.
While taste testing events have been held to assess cooked veal, the research hasn't yet progressed to a standard for the young carcase.
Joe Leven, member services officer for Casino Food Coop has been trying for years to get an MSA grading for veal and before COVID held a veal taste testing day at the Casino Rugby Club where researchers from the University of Armidale conducted an assessment of how the public liked young beef cooked under a grill.
The milk-fed beef is lean and healthy, with a mild flavour and can be used in a variety of dishes but as the young animal has rib and rump fat too thin to make the MSA grade it falls "out of spec" and is sold as a commodity. Casino Food Coop has been working on developing lines of pre-packaged veal cuts for the supermarket trade.
In this year's carcase competition producers directly consigned calves to the meatworks over three days in March, April and May.
"Veal is a product that can provide a producer with market options and it allows them to get calves off mum and allow her eight weeks to pick up condition before she calves down again in May and June," said Mr Leven. "It is also a big part of the Casino Food Coop as 30 per cent of the throughput is vealers. We like to showcase that part of our business and shine a spotlight on veal, showcasing high performance weight for maturity as a benchmark."
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