the cattle receive the same ration they did in the

High Stakes

PIP COURTNEY, PRESENTER: fake designer bags This story is about the relatively new, expensive and often lucrative world of Wagyu beef production.

When the Wagyu industry started here in the late '90s, many thought it a passing fad. But after almost two decades of investment, Australia now has the biggest herd outside Japan, and after years of relying on Japanese genetics to build that herd, the industry replica louis vuitton bags from china says it now has the tools to stand on its own feet, as Kerry Staight reports.

KERRY STAIGHT, REPORTER: Used for centuries in Japan as hardworking draft animals, Wagyu cattle have risen from their humble beginnings to become the haute couture of the beef world.

DAVID BLACKMORE, BLACKMORE WAGYU: When I first looked at my first Wagyu and I said to the guy who owned it, "God darn," I said, "These cattle are so ugly. I don't know how I'm going to go back to Australia and describe them." He cheap louis vuitton bags from china said, "Son, they just look like money to me."

SCOTT DE BRUIN, AUSTRALIAN WAGYU ASSOCIATION: Wagyu is very much the Louis Vuitton of beef, replica louis vuitton if you like. To paint a bit of a picture, when we first imported our cattle, they cost US$25,000 per head.

KERRY STAIGHT: Scott de Bruin is the president of the industry's peak body and runs South Australia's main Wagyu farm, Mayura, at Millicent in the state's south east. After buying 29 animals from a top Japanese producer in 1997, he now has one of the biggest full blood herds in the country, with around 6,000 head.

SCOTT DE BRUIN: It's probably one of the fastest growing breeds in Australia. The Wagyu industry's very much been in an investment phase for the last 10 to 15 years, whereas replica louis vuitton handbags now the industry has really become quite commercial.

KERRY STAIGHT: And this is where a lot of his investment has gone: a high tech feedlot where cattle spend their final year fattening up after being introduced to grain rations in the paddock. Modelled on a European design, it automatically delivers the complex blends to cattle twice a day.

SCOTT DE BRUIN: The grain feeding process takes a long time. So cattle have been grain fed for, say, 600 days and cost of grain is very high in Australia.

aaa replica designer handbags KERRY STAIGHT: Costs which are 1:1 replica handbags now starting to deliver some impressive returns.

SCOTT DE BRUIN: 10 years ago, a carcass was probably worth for a full blood Wagyu carcass, might have been worth about $3,000 to $4,000. Now it could be worth upwards to $6,000 to $8,000.

KERRY STAIGHT: This bit of meat alone would retail at more than $1,000. And when it comes to Wagyu, the money is in the marbling.

So you hear a lot about marbling when you talk about Wagyu. What actually is it?

SCOTT DE BRUIN: Marbling is actually these fine veins of fat which run inside the meat. So it's called intramuscular fat and it's like a street map of fat that goes throughout the muscle.

KERRY STAIGHT: It looks like there's a fair bit of marbling in this one, is that right?

SCOTT DE BRUIN: Yes, that's right. So this is what's described as a marble score nine plus. So the marble score rating actually goes Discount Replica Louis Vuitton Bags from zero to nine, with zero being the least amount of marbling and nine being the most. If there's a real abundance of marbling beyond nine, we call it a nine plus.

So with Wagyu, what you find is that see all this marbling? You see as soon as it starts to go on the grill, because it's got a low melting point, it's already starting to dissipate through the meat and that's what makes it so juicy.

KERRY STAIGHT: And seasoning isn't the only thing that enhances the flavour.

SCOTT DE BRUIN: What you feed the cattle is really important because it actually influences the flavour of the beef. We actually feed our cattle chocolate and it gives it a beautiful nutty, caramel flavour.

KERRY STAIGHT: From flavour to getting the right type of fat in the right place, feed is at the centre of any Wagyu operation. High profile Victorian producer David Blackmore won't give away exactly what's in his, but says this ration is environmentally friendly.

DAVID BLACKMORE: Everything that we feed is actually a by product of making human food. For instance, what's left over after making flour, what's left over after making canola oil.

KERRY STAIGHT: One of the main differences at his Alexandra property is that these leftovers no longer go to a traditional feedlot. Instead, they're delivered to a series of five acre paddocks with around 25 animals in each. The cattle receive the same ration they did in the feedlot, but stay on grass. The fifth generation farmer swapped to this system a few years ago.

DAVID BLACKMORE: We've been watching the animal welfare arguments and certainly animal welfare groups have got the public ear. They've changed the chicken industry, they've changed the pork industry, they've changed the sheep industry, mulesing. So, they're starting to cheap louis vuitton bags from china call feedlots "factory farming". So high quality designer replica handbags wholesale we looked at that, we looked at ways that we could raise our cattle, trying to make life happy for the cattle.

https://geneigh24822.blogspot.com/2021/07/ive-never-regretted-splurging-on-this.html KERRY STAIGHT: Do they actually eat a lot of the grass?

DAVID BLACKMORE: No, we sort of reckon that it's probably about 5 per cent of what they eat during the day is grass and you really don't see them, you know, getting there and eating whole mouthfuls; it's just a nibble.

KERRY STAIGHT: The transition has run way over budget and David Blackmore says managing the pasture is harder than expected. But he says the animals are performing better than ever, gaining more weight and maintaining a top marble score.

DAVID BLACKMORE: I had a lot of knockers. They said they're going to walk too much, they're not going to eat properly, they're going to eat the grass. And on exactly the same rations that we're feeding in the feedlot, we're getting replica louis vuitton bags a 20 per cent increase in productivity and the reason we think that it's done that is that the cattle lay down here all the time.

https://geneigh24822.blogspot.com/2021/07/ive-never-regretted-splurging-on-this.html KERRY STAIGHT: Has Fake Louis Vuitton Replica Bags it changed the meat? Has it changed the marbling? Has it changed the taste?

DAVID BLACKMORE: The marbling hasn't changed and I think our carcasses are actually softer than what they were.