The Stone family presented the Dick Stone perpetual trophy for grand champion grainfed branded beef to AA Co CEO Jason Strong, joined by Stuart Davies from the RAS

HONOURS were evenly shared among some of Australia’s best-known grain and grassfed beef supply chains at the 2016 Sydney Royal Fine Food Show’s branded beef competition, decided on Friday night.

Headlining results was a win for the Australian Agricultural Co’s new Wylarah Wagyu brand, which is part of a major brand rebuilding exercise the company is currently undertaking.

AA Co’s Wylarah was judged best branded beef in show, the competition’s paramount award, from a long list of 38 entries across four classes. It scored 92.67 points out of a possible 100 on flavour, juiciness, texture, overall liking and visual raw appearance.

Wylarah brand, representing AA Co’s 300-days plus grainfed F1 Wagyu program fed at Aronui and Goonoo feedlots in Queensland, claimed its first major branded beef title for the world’s largest beef producer.

A team of 115 expert judges judged 1200 food products as part of the 2016 Fine Food Show awards, with gold, silver and bronze medals awarded based on certain pointscore criteria, and championships warded in each division.

The general public, exhibitors and trade tasted many of the winning products at the Awards event on Friday at Sydney Showgrounds.

Other results:

In addition to the best in show award, AA Co’s Wylarah (named after the company’s Wagyu breeding aggregation near Surat on the western Darling Downs) was judged champion Wagyu beef exhibit, and grand champion grainfed beef of show.

Champion grainfed beef for breeds other than Wagyu was a Stockyard Gold longfed Angus entry from Queensland producer Stockyard, fed at the company’s Kerwee feedlot on the Darling Downs. Stockyard Gold is produced from specially selected Angus genetics that are raised on a nutritionally formulated high energy grain ration for 200 days using locally grown produce.

Sydney’s grassfed division champion this year was Certified Angus Group’s Signature Angus Pure natural beef brand program, produced by Thomas Foods International out of the company’s Murray Bridge processing plant in South Australia.

Backing up after a grassfed division win in 2015, Bindaree Beef returned to claim the champion open beef award with a Mayfield brand grain-enhanced product produced by Ceres Agriculture in northern NSW.

In total seven gold, eleven silver and sixteen bronze medals were awarded in this year’s branded beef competition. Just four of 38 entries failed to gain a medal.

“Sydney Royal does not just provide competitions and medals for producers but strives to foster excellence in agricultural practice across the food industries. Training and feedback is a key part of this,” said chief judge Sally Evans.

Champion winners become eligible for finalist selection in the Sydney Royal President’s Medal, a unique competition which judges award-winning businesses on their triple bottom line – social, economic and environment impact. The Sydney Show Fine Food Awards President’s Medal winner will be announced at a dinner on Friday, 25 November.

Full list of championship and medal winners below.