Graham and Kay Kahler named Qld MSA Producer of the Year
31 March 2016
South East Queensland cattle producers Graham and Kay Kahler have been named Queensland’s ‘MSA Producer of the Year’ at the inaugural MSA Excellence in Eating Quality Awards in Toowoomba last night.
The Awards recognise the State’s top producers who have achieved outstanding compliance rates to the Meat Standards Australia (MSA) specifications for cattle MSA graded during 2014-15.
The Kahlers breed and fatten predominantly Limousin yearling steers and heifers, turning off around 100 head annually for the domestic market from their property at Geham, north of Toowoomba.
They won the title from a field comprising over 2,600 registered producers in Queensland who consigned cattle during the 2014-15 financial year.
MSA Producer Engagement Officer Jarrod Lees said the Kahlers are sitting well above the national average with their MSA Index results for 2014-15.
“The quality cattle they are producing is really a testament to the effort they are putting in and the management of their animals,” Mr Lees said.
“From looking at their MSA grading data, we’ve been able to identify that the ossification scores of Graham and Kay’s cattle are really quite low which is a positive for eating quality.
“I think this is due to the fact that Graham and Kay’s cattle are their own, they’re breeding them, weaning them, putting them onto feed and getting them to market weight as soon as they can, controlling as many variables as possible.
“Coupled with that, the cattle marble well which is positive for eating quality outcomes.
“The cattle are very quiet and the way Graham works with them from a young age to get them used to people and keep them in a low-stress environment has really helped with their results.”
Ossification is a measure of the physiological maturity of the beef carcase, and eating quality declines as ossification increases. While ossification increases as the animal ages, it can also increase with nutritional or health stress.
To be eligible for the awards, a producer’s annual MSA-graded volume had to be in top 50th percentile for the State they were produced in.
Each producer that met the eligibility criteria received a score out of 100 weighted on two factors - the compliance to MSA minimum requirements, and eating quality performance as determined by the MSA Index for cattle consigned to MSA in 2014-15.
The Awards aim to raise awareness of best management practice from producers who consistently deliver superior eating quality beef ultimately for the benefit of consumers and for the profitability of the industry.
The Queensland awards are the first of the MSA Excellence in Eating Quality Awards to be held throughout Australia and are being held in conjunction with a ‘Future of Eating Quality’ forum in each State
MSA was developed by the Australian red meat industry to improve beef eating quality consistency. The system is based on over 700,000 consumer taste tests by over 100,000 consumers from nine countries and takes into account all factors that affect the eating quality from the paddock to the plate.
During 2014-15, almost 13,000 producers throughout Australia consigned over 3.2 million cattle to the MSA program.
For more details about the Kahlers' operation click here.
Watch a video about the Kahlers' MSA results below -
