Acting on recommendations from beef industry colleagues to sign up for Beef Central’s free daily news email has helped South Australian meat trader Howard Clarke to stay up to date in more ways than one.

Mr Clark’s email address was drawn last Friday as the winner of Beef Central’s new subscriber competition, which means he can now keep in touch with all the daily beef industry news via his new iPad 2.

All readers who subscribed to receive Beef Central’s free daily e-newsletter since March 26 were included in a free draw to win a new 16 GB iPad 2.

Mr Clark is a meat trader with the Gawler River Cattle Company, a family-owned business operated in South Australia by John Cormack and his four sons Paul, Matthew, Phillip and Andrew.

The Gawler River Cattle Company is the largest independent meat retailer in South Australia, operating livestock properties, accredited feedlots, retail butcher stores and associated wholesale distribution, smallgoods and food service businesses that supply product to most states and capital cities across Australia. Its multi-species boning room processes around 300 bodies of beef per week in addition to 350-450 pigs, 400-450 lambs, 300-350 goats and approximately 10,000 chickens.

In total the company now operates 21 retail outlets and employs employs more than 400 people.

Howard is a butcher by trade and has worked in the meat wholesale and export trade for 40 years, mostly in South Australia.

He said he signed up to receive Beef Central’s free daily emails for himself after receiving forwarded articles from friends in the meat trade.

“I heard about Beef Central through word of mouth from other people in the industry,” he said.

“It is really good, I find it interesting and it suits me.

“There is a lot of stuff that comes up on the net nowadays that is just a waste of space and a waste of time, but to find this I was happy to read it and talk about it, and it keeps you informed too.”