A supply chain approach to supporting sustainable beef production

Summary

The Australian premium grass fed beef industry has evolved over recent years as a result of vastly changing markets with more complex consumer preferences and ideologies.  Food safety and eating quality standards are expectations of consumers purchasing Australian beef. More recently other factors such as whole of life production, animal welfare and ethics are dominating the needs of premium markets, both domestically and export.  Supply chain inefficiencies from animal production through to market exist within the grass fed beef sector, limiting on farm adoption, profitability and processor efficiency.

Pasture based beef production systems are influenced enormously by a combination of seasonal conditions, grazing management and access to markets.  As a result, consistency of end product varies, eating quality is unreliable and continuity of supply is difficult to achieve.  High levels of non-compliance exist, resulting in lost value from failure to meeting specific market/processor grids Apart from continuity of supply issues and high levels of non-compliance, verification of pasture fed beef supply chains has not previously existed, leaving the market open to interpretation and poor product representation.

This project supported established work on pasture fed beef value chains that address continuity of supply, information flows and market signals. This project allowed increased emphasises on sustainable beef production.
The pasture fed beef resource package combines relevant information to beef producers across south-eastern Australia accredited under specific industry programs that are audited and market exclusive. 

The resource has combined elements of beef production and supply that are necessary for sustainable and profitable production.  The resource package provides an introduction to a number of modules with further detailed information to be accessed via a number of links to relevant websites on each topic.

The project delivered eight forums over the three years, although the final year forums were delayed a year as requested by JBS and McDonalds. The objective was to deliver three annual forums but in the second and third years, it was decided to run more forums at a regional level to engage producers who could not attend larger annual forums centrally located. Over 800 producers and service providers attended the forums. The forums provided an opportunity for transparent and open communication between all segments of the farm assured value chain, from regional procurement, sustainable production to marketing farm-assured product on a global market.

The project provided an added value by developing a framework for measuring sustainable production using McDonalds link in the Global Roundtable on beef production and the McDonald's Canadian sustainable beef model. This framework was resource in producing on farm case studies including sustainable production delivered through other projects with JBS and Coles.