Respected southern Australian beef processor David Throsby passed away this week.

Mr Throsby was regarded as one of the pioneers of the new era of export meat marketing that began in the 1960s with the emergence of the US export beef market.

“This was a new time requiring men of vision and David Throsby and his brother Joe were part of that era that helped to transform the industry into what it is today,” the Australian Meat Industry Council’s national processing director Steve Martyn said in a salute issued this morning.

David Throsby started his business, Charles David Pty Ltd, in the 1950s, soon involving his younger brother, Maynard (better known as Joe) operating out of meatworks at Maitland and Newcastle.

They purchased the domestic plant at Gosford in NSW in 1966, upgrading it to export standard a year later. This was followed by the purchase of the plant at Murray Bridge in South Australia in 1968 and the building of cold-storage facilities at Gosford in 1974 and later at Port Adelaide, South Australia.

The Throsby business continued to expand, purchasing the Maitland works from FJ Walker in 1984. With rationalisation now in full swing, the brothers purchased a further three closed meatworks on one day in 1985: Illawarra Meats at Yallah near Wollongong; the council-owned plant at Wagga; and the AW Anderson plant at Wallangarra on the Queensland border.

The Wallangarra plant (now owned and operated by T&R) was stripped to upgrade the Wagga plant and the Yallah plant then re-started.

The Throsbys sold Charles David Pty Ltd as a business to Metro Meat in 1987, just six months before the stock market crashed that year, only to re-emerge in the early 1990s when they built a hot boning facility at Singleton, now run by David’s son, Edward.

David Throsby was a highly respected industry leader of his day, Mr Martyn said.