HAD he not joined the family business, you get the impression Murray Olsson would have made a handy scientist or engineer or detective.
Solving problems, and more specifically, helping producers across Australia to get to the bottom of nutritional mysteries for their livestock and their own unique landscapes is the part of his job as Operations Manager of Olsson Blocks that Murray reckons he loves the most.
“That personally is probably one of my thrills in life – seeing a problem and working out a way for the farmers that they can combat it or benefit from it,” he said in a recent interview with Beef Central to mark the family company’s 70th anniversary, which is being marked in 2024.
Along with his cousins Alex and Genevieve, Murray is part of a third generation of Olsson family members now at the helm of Olsson Industries, a brand that is now a byword for livestock nutritional supplementation across Australia.
Solving two problems at once
In fact it’s fair to say that problem solving has been right at the heart of the family business since way back in the 1940s when Norman Olsson (grandfather of Alex and Genevieve) made a bold decision to pivot into a new industry – a gamble that would in fact solve two problems at once.
At the time Norman was making blocks of ice in Parramatta for household ice chests. But he could see the advent of refrigeration would soon make his business redundant.
He could also see that graziers, particularly those battling drought, were struggling to find a reliable source of nutritional supplementation for their sheep and cattle.
So Norman bought a block press and switched from making blocks of ice to making blocks for livestock instead.
The first Olsson’s Calcium Molasses pressed salt block was made in 1949, the forerunner of all multi-nutrient blocks made in Australia. Olsson’s Industries was incorporated as a business five years later in 1954.
The theory behind pressed blocks is to add a balance of nutrients and trace elements to encourage and support the rumen in processing dry feed, mimicking natural processes.
As demand for the company’s blocks grew, new problems in need of solving for the fledgling business emerged – most importantly, securing a dependable, high quantity and high quality supply of salt.
That problem was initially solved in the late 1950s when Norman drove to the York Peninsula in South Australia and purchased salt leases in the Peesey Swamp near Warooka.
The company’s salt supply was then further shored up in the 1980s when brothers Charles (father of Alex and Genevieve) and Malcolm and their cousin Don (father of Murray) leased land and built a salt works from scratch at Port Alma south of Rockhampton in Queensland.
It turns out that establishing a salt farm on a marine flood plain is not for the faint hearted.
Murray said it took ‘probably 15 years’ of hard work and investment to get the Central Queensland site operating to full capacity.
“It was interesting, it was built on marine tidal mud,” Murray explained.
“When we started building there, even putting the first power pole in to get power there, they lifted up this power pole and dropped it into position, and the whole power pole disappeared under the mud.
“As time went on the whole factory really got built on a pontoon of thousands of tonnes of rock. It was not easy, and dad and uncle Charles put a lot of heartache into that place.”
Despite being allergic to cotton seed meal himself – an ingredient he had to work with when mixing blocks on school holidays – Murray still found the family business and the opportunity to help producers research nutritional issues and solutions an enticing career lure.
“And then I found out that we could replace the protein meals with other things I wasn’t allergic to.”
‘Livestock instinctively know what their bodies require’
70 years on, feedback from producers all over Australia continues to directly influence Olsson’s products, along with direct feedback from livestock themselves.
The company’s self-selecting blocks embody a key philosophy of nutritional wisdom –livestock instinctively know what their bodies require.
Professor Ron Leng AO played an integral role in the development of the company’s blocks, allowing animals to self-select based on their needs, and in turn optimising their health and productivity.
“The feedback we have from clients is really what builds a lot of what we do,” Murray said.
“We’ve got a big country and Australia is a big nation and there are lots of different deficiencies all around Australia.
“The feedback we get from farmers about a problem they’ve got just builds another line of products.”
Olsson’s currently has about 150 different block formulations, including around 50 for cattle alone. The sheer size of the range speaks volumes about the vast diversity of landscapes in which livestock are raised throughout Australia.
Free-choice blocks help to solve nutritional problems
Murray recounted an experience from the early 1990s drought in Charleville to illustrate the practical role free-choice blocks playing in helping to solve nutritional problems on different properties.
“We were putting out urea and mineral blocks and they were disappearing just about as quickly as the blocks could go out.
“My dad said ‘we have got to get to the bottom of this – with the amount of lick they’re consuming surely they’re chasing something’.
“Dad put out about four or five different blocks and there were two that stood out – one was sulphur and the other one was phosphorous.
“So from having one block that they consumed 500 grams, to having three blocks that they had actually chosen out of the whole mix that we had put out, the consumption went down to about 220 grams total.
“And that was just the start of realising that the animal actually knew how to formulate something better than what we do.”
“Just out of interest, because there is mulga there, sulphur is beneficial in breaking tannins so that the protein in the mulga can be used for the animal. So hence one of the reasons why they really demolished the sulphur there.”
Increasing concentrations drives more efficient consumption
Over time Olsson’s has increased the concentration of urea in its blocks from 30 percent to 40 percent, and recently to 50 percent, which has resulted in more efficient consumption and superior animal performance.
The same approach has also been applied to its sulphur and phosphorus blocks.
Lifting urea content by from 30 percent to 40 percent resulted in livestock consuming 25 percent less of the block while still meeting their nutritional needs, Murray said.
“Consumption goes down another 20 percent when you go up to 50 percent,” he said.
“So when someone is going to buy a triple, or 100 tonnes, you can be buying half that or three trailers instead of four.
“And if you can make your lick run maybe once a month rather than once every two weeks, it is fairly major in respect to the saving for the grazing business.”
As a general rule, producers starting on Olsson’s products are given a range of blocks to assess how quickly livestock consume each one, Murray said.
“We make up a mixture of blocks all on the same pallet, so they get that free-choice pallet with a certain amount of this block and a certain amount of that block.
“The cattle just take what they want, and it works really well.”
Specific blocks for specific issues
Some blocks also contain specific ingredients to tackle specific problems.
One example is a sulphur-based block which incorporates a garlic extract called ‘Allicin’, a natural antibiotic and a chemical compound that helps to naturally repel flies and ticks while providing essential nutrients.
Specific block advancements have also reduced the impact of toxic native plants like poisonous gidgee and lantana, allowing livestock to process the feed and reducing mortality rates.
To mark its 70th anniversary, Olsson’s has also just launched a new product specifically for young weaner cattle called Grow Pro, an advanced formulation which addresses the primary need for high-quality protein in early-weaned cattle on northern properties.
Bacteria to the future
Looking ahead, Olsson’s Industries is working on incorporating beneficial bacteria into its blocks range.
“Feeding billions of bacteria in a free-choice system will further increase livestock resilience and their ability to combat harmful bacteria that impact the immune systems.
“Unlike most bacteria, Olsson’s unique spore-based bacteria can survive the rumen activating in the gut to excrete enzymes.”
Work to incorporate methane reducing supplements into blocks is also showing promise.
“Professor Ron Leng was talking about methane probably 30 years ago, he developed things like nitrate and elements that would reduce methane,” Murray said.
“Recently we also have been working with Sea Forest in respect to their Asparagopsis seaweed that has some really good reductions.
“The main work we have been doing is just making sure the block is a stable… the bromoform which is the element from the Asparagopsis is quite a volatile chemical, it is just doing different brews to make sure it is a stabilised so when the cow licks the block, it hasn’t dispersed until they get it into their system.”
Block party
The company also regularly hosts livestock seminars, aiming to share with producers continued learning in the livestock nutrition space.
From making blocks of ice to blocks of livestock supplement, blocks are in the Olsson’s blood.
There is no sign of the family business standing still 70 years on.
A recent redevelopment of the company’s Morningside factory in Brisbane where most of its lick blocks are manufactured will boost production capacity further, while a fourth generation of the Olsson family is now also learning the family trade.
“It is quite exciting to see that,” Murray said.
“We just plan to as a family to keep servicing the rural industry and hopefully we can pass things on to the next generation.”
In the 70s My Father Ken Gorham was a great believer in these and they were a great help to us producing a bale of superfine wool that got an Australian record price in 1971 when wool was at rock bottom. The Grassy Creek bale was something to be proud of.
Well done to the Olsson family for their long history of providing nutritional supplements to the grazing industry. Murray’s mulga feeding insights from the 1990s led me to good recollections of an earlier time.
Animal nutrition studies on sheep and cattle fed mulga leaf (= phyllode) diets were intensively researched in the late 1960s – 1970s in an animal house facility at the Charleville Pastoral Laboratory and at the nearby Charleville Experimental Reserve. Practical extension of this research was also tested on cooperating landholder properties. The results were reported in a series of 5 papers published in the Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture from 1976-1981. The studies were led by DPI’s (now DAF) Dr Neil McMeniman along with colleagues from the Vet School of the University of Queensland. This work was seminal in providing objective data on supplement composition for ruminants being fed a mulga leaf diet during recurrent droughts.
Despite the quality of its collective research output during the latter half of the 20th century, the Charleville Pastoral Laboratory was subsequently closed down by the Queensland government of the day. There’s none so blind as those that will not see!
Great family and very focused on improving stock health and proftability of producers