QUEENSLAND-based vertically integrated beef business Stanbroke has picked up one of the top awards at the Darling Downs Beef Battle for the fifth consecutive year.
Stanbroke won the people’s choice award with its Diamantina Wagyu, while Stockyard Beef won the professional choice category with its Kiwami Wagyu.
Mort & Co finished second in the people’s choice category, with Rangers Valley third. Behind Stockyard in the professionally judged category was The Grove in second and John Dee in third.
Run by the Toowoomba Surat Basin Enterprise, the Darling Downs Beef Battle has been running for the past seven years, pitting the region’s beef brands against each other by putting hundreds of people in a room together, feeding them a sample of the steak and getting them to judge it on beef flavour, flavour intensity, tenderness, juiciness and overall liking. In recent years it has added a professionally judged category.
This year it turned over 540kg of steak.
The competition has been growing in popularity over the years, this year selling out quickly with 500 people coming together at Rumors International in Toowoomba.
Nine brands were involved in the competition this year including Stockyard Beef, Australian Country Choice, JBS, The Grove Shorthorns, Mort & Co, NH Foods, Rangers Valley, Stanbroke and John Dee.
Stanbroke’s winning entry was bred and grown by the company from start to finish. It was bred on the company’s Fort Constantine property in North-West Queensland, fed at its Bottletree Feedlot in Southern Qld and processed at its Grantham abattoir in the Lockyer Valley.
Its Wagyu brand is sold as both Diamantina and Sanchoku across the world. Sales manager Mark Harris said it was a crossbred Wagyu program for several years.
“It is a minimum F1, but a lot of the program these days is F2 and there is even some F3 starting come through,” he said.
Stanbroke has its own restaurant in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley. It also sells the Wagyu at several Australian restaurants including Moo Moo, Gambaro and supermarket chain Drakes. The company also exports to more than 35 countries and sells to the domestic market through its Stanbroke Foods business.
“Winning five years in a row is not just a wonderful result, it really talks to the quality and consistency of the product,” he said.
“It has come through all divisions of the company and it is a credit to the Stanbroke team across all divisions.”
Winning competitions doesn’t come easy
The wining entry for the professional category was bred by Peter and Netta Robinson of Crown Cattle Co at Hughenden in North Queensland – long term suppliers of Stockyard.
As one of the most consistent performers in branded beef competitions over the years, Stockyard’s chief operating officer Marcus Doumany said events like the beef battle were part of the company’s DNA. He said the Darling Downs had some of the country’s best grainfed beef producers.
“To get these awards, we can go to our customers and show them that we have put our product up against our competition and demonstrated the consistency,” Mr Doumany said.
“It doesn’t come easy to produce this kind of product, we are so proud of the people we have on the ground and the effort that goes into generating the product such as our Kiwami brand.”
Stockyard’s biggest market is in Japan, with the United Arab Emirates being its most high value. It is also featured in domestic restaurants, with high-end Brisbane restaurant, SK Steak & Oyster, being one of its most vocal supporters. (See today’s Weekly Grill for more on Stockyard)
How the competition runs
Each of the nine entries was brought out to tables in 20-minute increments, with two sirloin steaks served per table. That meant about 100 steaks were being served every 20 minutes.
The brand of the steaks was kept anonymous with participants logging into an app to answer the eating quality questions.
The steaks are cooked by a team of four chefs, led by Meat & Livestock Australia corporate chef Sam Burke. Mr Burke said the steaks are cooked on flat plates, because it is high marbling and they needed reduce flare.
“We let it come to room temperature prior to cooking. Then season it with a neutral oil and then some salt, and then hit it with some cracked black pepper at the end when it goes out to the punters,” he said,
“But big flat grills, and then we just go for gold. It is quite full on, there is me and three other chefs just smashing those steaks.
“We rest them for about four minutes under the heat lights, allow those juices to redistribute, and then cut across the grain, and then we try to give them the centre cuts, not the end bits, because we want everyone to judge the beef for what it is.
“If you get an end bit you are going to get a different degree of doneness than what you are going to get in the centre of the sirloin. And that is why we use the sirloin too (because can provide that consistency from steak to steak).”
Photos from the event
Geoff Cornford, Rebecca O’Reilly, Jihyun Sun and Chaeho Shin from Lotte International.
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