“Party at my place,” the farmer said, as he fed it out. A nearby cake factory, which supplies to bakeries and supermarkets throughout Bogota, needed to dispose of the thickened ends of the cakes. The solution found was to feed the cake to cattle in the final three to four months of finishing. The cattle loved it, including the baking paper, which the farmer claimed provided some fibre alongside the carbohydrate and protein-loaded cake.
Keeping an open mind is essential to learning on a Nuffield scholarship. Visiting beef farms and feedlots in Virginia and Pennsylvania in the United States took it to another level. Farmers there introduced me to bunkers full of chocolate and chippies – or, as they call it, “party mix”. There were pieces of M & Ms, chocolate-coated peanuts, and all kinds of chopped-up chocolate bars, including Mars Bars. The chippies were a mix of ripple-cut potato chips, CCs, Burger Rings, Grain Waves, Twisties … to name a few.
Thousands of cattle enjoy these treats, living it up in the last few months of their lives as they are finished for processing. For the record, the party mix was part of a balanced diet designed for the cattle by livestock nutritionists. Yes, the diet did also include grain, silage and various other nutrients, fibre, protein and carbohydrates.
Food wastage is a big issue around the world. Feeding cake, chocolate and chippies to cattle is perceived as a way to reduce food wastage and minimise waste dumps overload. The products are the seconds or thirds – stuff that doesn’t make the cut for packaging and sale to the consumer. One farm was next door to a potato chip factory. Feeding the seconds to the neighbouring cattle farm was obviously an efficient and effective way to minimise wastage and the cattle certainly enjoyed the diet.
When we finish cattle in New Zealand, it’s generally a 100% pasture diet. The cattle harvest the grass and convert it into red protein. There’s a huge consumer market seeking NZ’s free-roaming, pasture-fed food products. The conventional NZ production system, as it stands, is not far off what many consumers in the US consider organic.
Consumers and retailers I met, including the chief executive of Burger Bach (a NZ-inspired gastro pub), were fascinated by our production system – and consistently commented that we could tell our story better.
We produce exactly what they are prepared to pay a premium for. How much of a premium depends on several factors including value add, logistics and distribution, customer service, and control of the product. How we figure the value proposition is an ongoing dilemma: value versus cost to serve – this is a conversation for the businesses at each link of the chain, and the sector as a whole.
For some, such as Gallagher Fencing NZ, getting close to the end consumer is really important for capturing value.
Like all people in business, farmers work to utilise the resources at their disposal in the most efficient, effective way to create a profit. Though these offshore party mix examples may not be the way we feed cattle in NZ, the basic principles apply. To produce a healthy prime animal to the right specifications requires a balanced diet. They need metabolisable energy – through protein and carbohydrates – and fibre to ensure a healthy rumen system to process it all and convert the goodies into muscle.
No matter what part of the world we live in, farmers take great pride in happy, healthy cattle, with shiny coats, which kick up their heels and clearly feel good. These farmers overseas were no different.
The only difference lay in the composition of the balanced diet they fed their animals. Yes, unconventional by NZ standards – but a balanced diet, nevertheless.
The key for NZ is to ensure we capture the market opportunities presented to us. Given our great outdoors, pastoral system, we produce what consumers want. However, we need robust science on the qualities of NZ meat that differentiate our product – so we can always do a great job of telling the story about how we produce what we produce, and why our meat meets consumer wants and needs.
This is one of the project focus areas of the Red Meat Profit Partnership. Better resourcing and on-the-ground marketplace intelligence and management, with strong end-customer relationships are ways that would help NZ capture the value of producing great quality beef, raised in a free-range pastoral system.
This is not to say that it is not happening at all. Rather, that there is opportunity for improvement.
Mark Harris, marketing manager animal management, Gallaghers, said: “He who is closest to the end customer captures the most value.” And the Burger Bach chief executive said: “You’ve got great stories; keep telling us your stories, so we can share them with our customers.”
These observations were made on the study tour component of the Nuffield Scholarship, sponsored by Beef + Lamb NZ, DairyNZ, AgMardt, FMG, FAR, Mackenzie Charitable Foundation, Meridian Energy and Farmlands.
- Mel Poulton, 2014 Nuffield scholar and B+LNZ extension manager.
