Cattle on feed at JBS Australia’s Beef City yard on the Darling Downs, celebrating 50 years of operations this month

AS one of Australia’s pioneering large-scale feedlots notched up 50 years of operations with a gathering on Friday, attention was drawn to the fact that the Australian beef industry is gradually morphing into something closer to the United States’ grainfed-dominant production model.

JBS marked Beef City feedlot’s half-century with a lively BBQ on Friday, bringing together stakeholders old and new who have had a connection with the business near Toowoomba over the years, to celebrate and reflect.

A few quick calculations on the back of an envelope suggested that the 25,000 head capacity Beef City feedlot has produced around 1.3 million tonnes of high quality grainfed beef since the yard opened its doors to its first pen of Hereford steers from Taroom in 1974.  The site had the toughest of early starts, with the 1974-78 Beef Slump hitting almost before the site started operations.

Brent Eastwood addresses Friday’s gathering at Beef City

JBS Australia chief executive officer Brent Eastwood told Friday’s gathering that grain feeding in Australia at the time was a “very, very small segment of the overall beef industry.”

“The decision to build the feedlot, and the dedicated export abattoir that sits beside it, was visionary, and it’s stood the test of time,” Mr Eastwood said.

“Beef City was created at a time when none of us really knew where the (beef) world was heading.

“But Australia is now moving towards becoming a very similar beef industry to that seen in the United States – dedicated cow/calf operators, backgrounders and feedlots playing a big part in producing high quality, consistent beef,” he said.

Some of the grainfed beef brands being produced out of the Beef City complex have been in place for between 25 and 40 years, with high levels of customer loyalty.

Growth in grainfed operations

JBS Northern division chief operating officer Brendan Tatt said there were not a lot of food businesses in the world that had lasted 50 years – particularly in a segment as dynamic and volatile as the red meat industry.

As the largest lotfeeder and beef processor in Australia, JBS Northern operates five feedlots and five export processing plants, feeding around 140,000 head at any one time, and processing well over one million cattle each year.

“The Australian grainfed beef industry has grown, along with our own business over time,” Mr Tatt said. “There were only four or five other feedlots in existence in Australia before Beef City was built in 1974 – it was still very, very new.”

Scroll forward, and Australia has chalked up back-to-back record cattle numbers on feed over the past two consecutive quarters, hitting 1.4 million head for the first time in the June quarter report.

And there’s wide expectation that the number will be broken again when the September quarter data is released in the next week or two.

Brendan Tatt

“I truly believe that by 2030 or thereabouts, Australia will have two million head on feed,” Mr Tatt told Friday’s gathering.

“That’s due to a couple of things: businesses like Beef City have a steadfast reputation for being able to deliver the same meat, week-in, week-out. It’s impossible to do that – in Queensland, particularly – on a grassfed model, with the volatility in seasons,” he said.

“These feedlot businesses – and Beef City is one of them – have really led the way in what a consistent beef supply chain looks like for customers around the world. These days, all our customers tell us they don’t want meat for three or six months of the year, they want it 365 days a year. They want to commit to a brand, buy into the culture and the story behind it, but they also want to be sure that that meat is there in the coldroom or on the shelf, every week.”

Parallel with US grainfed model

So how closely is the future Australian beef industry likely to reflect the grainfed-dominant US beef production system? Beef Central asked.

“Realistically, the northern half of Australia – particularly – is always going to be governed by really volatile climatic conditions,” Brendan Tatt said.

“It seems that Queensland, the Northern Territory and northwest NSW, are always either in drought, or approaching their next drought.

“But our beef customers, and our processing workforce, can’t continue to operate at the premium levels we want to operate at, on a seasonal basis. They commit to a consistent quality brand program, and they want it 52 weeks a year.

“For us to manage that, grainfeeding becomes a pre-requisite. Australian cattle producers are incredibly resilient – they are very good at getting a calf on the ground, and getting it to a feeder-type weight. But often we have to wait an entire extra season to finish that animal on grass.”

“And there’s also the sustainability point of view – being more efficient with the assets we have. Turning off feeders instead of grassfed bullocks allows the producer to run more breeders and turn off more calves.”

Beef Central wrote about this topic in this 2022 article:  Are QLD’s traditional grassfed bullocks under threat of becoming dinosaurs?  

Environmental message?

Asked whether the Australian grainfed industry had been vigorous enough in highlighting the methane emissions advantage provided by earlier and heavier finishing capacity through grainfeeding, Mr Tatt said the red meat industry in general had not been vigorous enough in pushing its facts forward.

“Lotfeeding is probably a good example of that. But to our advantage, we certainly have more data at our disposal now than we have every had about the efficiencies inherent in lotfeeding, and the impact we are having. We just need to get better at getting that message to the broader community,” he said.

So what will be the limiting factor that constrains the Australian beef industry from moving even closer to a full US-style grainfed model? Beef Central asked Mr Tatt.

“The only real constraint we have is capital,” he said. “Australia is a large net exporter in grain, so feedgrain is not likely to be a major limiting factor. There are still plenty of calves bred that could be directed into feedlot programs. The only thing that slows stakeholders from building more pen space is desire, at this point.

Mr Tatt said while there had been considerable expansion in Australian feedlot capacity over the past couple of years, much of that had happened in family-owned yards, particularly.

JBS’s own Australian feedlot capacity is somewhat unusual, in that it has changed very little, if at all, over the past 10-15 years.

“But equally, we are processing a lot more grainfed cattle fed by others,” he said.

“There are large family-owned feedlots on the Darling Downs where 100pc of turnoff is directed into JBS plants. We’re using more of these third-party feeders, but having said that, JBS is still the largest lotfeeder in Australia, by a fair margin.

More grainfed processing

Some of JBS’s processing plants that in the past had been used more or less exclusively for grassfed production were now processing grainfeds in greater numbers.

“We have dedicated weekly supplies of grainfed at JBS Rockhampton now, that we never had in the past. And there have been major investments at JBS Dinmore, that mean the site will become one of the largest grainfed plants in Australia, by the end of this year,” he said.

That process would not necessarily push grassfed cattle out of Dinmore to other sites, but would be in addition to grassfed kills, he said, as staffing levels grow.

Even further south, JBS now processes some grainfed cattle at its Scone (NSW) and Brooklyn (Victoria) facilities – especially the Potoro ‘Never-Ever’ program – in addition to the flagship Great Southern Grassfed cattle that have been the mainstay of the company’s southern model for years.

“As we have seen with the seasonal predicament in the south this year, our grainfed catle are just a wonderful way to finish cattle when the pasture gods are not smiling,” Mr Tatt said.

To clarify, JBS uses very little custom-feeding space in Queensland or NSW, but the recent growth in grainfed numbers being processed has come almost exclusively from long-term contracts with privately owned yards – many of which have expanded under the agreement.

Having said that, there are several JBS-operated feedlots – where expansion might be possible. Prime City, Mungindi and Caroona all have operating licenses that would allow for some expansion, if it was pursued.

“But the recent focus has really been about getting the Dinmore processing plant better equipped to handle grainfeds first,” Mr Tatt said.

“We have spent a lot of money at Dinmore over the past couple of years with expanded and more efficient chillers and boning room capacity on that objective. With grainfed, a lot more of the carcase goes down the chilled cryovac line, rather than into a frozen box.”

“That’s a really big change to our mix, but it had to happen in order to expand Dinmore’s grainfed capability, before we started to grow grain-finished cattle supply,” Mr Tatt said.

Captured below are some of the industry stakeholders, past and present, that took part in Beef City’s 50th anniversary gathering on Friday.

JBS head of export beef sales Emma Golder, with Mort & Co’s livestock general manager Brett Campbell

John Keaveny, centre spent his career in feedlot and livestock operations, firstly with Tancreds, then AMH and later still, JBS. He is pictured with JBS livestock general manager Edwin Cooke, right, and feedlot procurement manager Scott Minnikin

Beef City’s founding general manager Rod Hadwen, centre, with current feedlot manager Sean Sturgess, left, and George Byers, who has worked in the yard’s livestock team for 39 years

Long service has been a hallmark of the Beef City crew, and Friday’s 50th anniversary of the business was marked with this honour board, with four staff notching up 35+ years with the business, and another six, 20 years or more. Holding the plaque are JBS marketing manager Michael Finucan and Beef City manager Sean Sturgess

ALFA chief executive Christian Mulders, right, and MLA feedlot program manager Matt van der Saag, left, were on hand to enjoy’ JBS’s 50 anniversary gathering at Beef City. With them are JBS general manager of feedlots James Palfreeman, second from right, Beef City manager Sean Sturgess and JBS GM feedlots and marketing Michael Finucan

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