AN after-school job mopping floors and preparing value-added chicken products at his local Sydney Lenard’s chicken shop opened Michael Campbell’s mind to a world of opportunity in agriculture.

Dr Michael Campbell addressing the 2024 ICMJ conference at Wagga.

The then-Sydney schoolboy experienced first hand the true value of value adding, as brought into commercial reality by one of the masters, Lenard Poulter.

Lenard’s ubiquitous chicken store franchises revolutionised meat retailing across Australia by value-adding chicken into a wide range of convenient, easy-to-cook, consumer focused meals.

“Everything he prepared was all around meal solutions, and that is something we talk about commonly in our industry now,” Michael told 130 university students participating in the annual Intercollegiate Meat Judging  conference in Wagga.

“And I was learning that organically as a casual job after school and at weekends.”

Hooked on working in the meat industry, when he finished school Michael dived boots and all into the ag sector. He studied Animal Science at the University of Sydney, later adding an MBA through UNE and a PhD, and along the way tasted success as a member of the University of Sydney’s Intercollegiate Meat Judging team in 2001, winning the Retail Cuts section. He has also served on the National ICMJ Committee.

He has also since amassed a diverse array of practical livestock and red meat industry experience from working as a beef cattle extension officer with NSW DPI and a rural banker with Rabobank to managing a cattle operation in Papua New Guinea for New Britain Palm Oil and lecturing in Farming Systems at Charles Sturt University.

With his wife and three children Michael also runs 400 Angus and Angus cross cows along with an Akaushi stud near Adelong in NSW (Akaushi are a specific breed of Wagyu sometimes referred to as Japanese Red Cattle).

But it is the start-up specialist dairy-beef supply chain business he launched in 2022 called Legendairy Beef that is capturing the attention of some of the food industry’s biggest names.

Legendairy Beef

Legendairy Beef works with dairy farmers to value-add surplus, non-replacement calves with optimised beef genetics and management, marketing and payment programs.

Increasing numbers of dairy farmers today use sexed semen to breed the female cattle they need to replace their dairy cows, and then use beef semen to produce the rest of their calves which can then be raised for the beef supply chain.

In his presentation at Wagga Wagga Michael displayed visual comparisons of a Holstein Angus cross carcase (below left) with a Holstein carcase (below right) from steers of the same age, which highlighted the significantly superior muscle shape and yield of the former.

Ribeye from Holstein Angus cross steer (left) and Holstein steer (right) at same age.

The same Holstein-Angus carcases at 20-21 month of age had marble scores in the 8 and 9 range and an MSA index score of over 70, and returned up to $500 a head more than similar aged Angus cattle.

The dairy beef calves in that instance were raised in a grain assist paddock system, but that is only one of several pathways the Legendairy Beef team is trialling as it seeks to find the optimum and highest value production and marketing strategies.

Dr Campbell said they have also had successful results with a younger harvest point as low as 13 months and even 12 months aimed at the supermarket trade, a product which was also finding a ready-market among customers who did not want beef with marbling.

Understand what creates value for your customer

“I guess my point there is to understand what creates value for your customer,” he told the students.

“So here I am the whole time thinking we need to create marbling – create heavy carcases with marbling because we knew there were customers out there who were paying for that in the long fed Angus game.

“But maybe this a more profitable harvest end point for us.”

Emission advantage

It is on the emissions front that dairy beef really stands out over conventionally raised beef, for two reasons in particular.

The faster time to harvest means lower lifetime emissions.

But the way methane accounting systems work provides a further major advantage.

“Essentially we’re looking at a third less of our footprint for our dairy beef animals, and the simplest way I can describe this to you is for our dairy beef steers, their mums are all in the milking herd so all of the carbon, all of their footprint, is associated with dairy.

“Whereas you can imagine a northern beef herd with cows running around, might only be a 70pc branding rate, might actually be just 40pc, so all these cows producing methane, and you are only harvesting 40pc of those as calves and then they’re taking two or three years to get through the system.

“On this side (dairy beef calves), they are coming to us almost carbon free and then we’re growing them and then harvesting them potentially at 12 months of age.”

From background conversations with people close to beef processing and retail chains Beef Central understands some of the major food companies “cannot get enough” of beef produced from dairy-beef systems because they not only tick the box on consistency and quality but also because of the inherently lower carbon footprint.

Harnessing traceability and data

Traceability and data is also enabling farmers in the Legendairy Beef system to predict carcase outcomes and in turn influence payment systems at a very early stage for each animal.

Michael said dairy beef calves reared with optimum genetics, nutrition and best practice standards in Australia were also avoiding health problems such as liver abscesses that affected cattle in other parts of the world, and in turn were creating extra value for the abattoir by eliminating waste.

“This is a really tight margin game, we can’t afford wastage, so if you are thinking about getting into this at all, or doing anything in this space, everything has to be spot on.

“Wrong genetics can cost $200 a carcase, but through good versus poor calf raising practices, you’re looking at different average daily weight gains for the rest of their life and make a good margin.

“You have got to think about what creates value for your customers and what creates value for anyone you are working with.”

So confident is now in the future of the dairy beef industry and the consistency of quality it provides he offered a confident prediction to the 130 university students present:

“In my mind, there is absolutely no doubt that beef on dairy can surpass our traditional supply of beef supply chains in the next five years.”