FRESH off the back of their success in the Royal Queensland Food and Wine Show branded beef and lamb awards, Australian Agricultural Company is in the running for another accolade, the lauded Sydney Royal President's Medal.
More than 5500 entries are received each year in the Sydney Royal Fine Food Show, with 126 champions selected. Of those, the top six are nominated for the President's Medal.
Judges Michael Bullen and ABC Local Radio Sydney weekends presenter Simon Marnie visited AACo's Wylarah Station near Surat and Aronui Feedlot, near Dalby, on Monday.
"What we are looking for is how good they are as a business - not just from the normal traditional sense, but we want to find out how good they are environmentally, financially and socially," Mr Marnie said.
"We want to find out how well do they fit in - not just the town, but the whole agricultural community - and we also look at their passion, artisan techniques and vision."
AACo branded beef general manager Cye Travers says Darling Downs Wagyu, for which they have been nominated, is the flagship of AACo's branded beef program.
"AACo first got involved in Wagyu many years ago now; we've got probably the world's largest Wagyu herd - both full blood and crossbred," Mr Travers said.
"This year we're going to turn off about 55,000 head of Wagyu and Wagyu-cross cattle into our Wagyu brands, so it's a big part of our business.
"We focus on the eating quality from one end of the supply chain to the other, to produce the ultimate eating experience. And not just a Wagyu eating experience, but the best Wagyu eating experience anyone can have in terms of consistency and quality."
Mr Travers said AACo had spent the past 18 months focusing on trying to deliver a better eating experience for customers.
He said they had also looked at increasing returns by growing and maintaining margins throughout the whole supply chain, rather than giving away their investments in genetics and feed formulations.
"We're well down the path of becoming a vertically integrated meat company as opposed to a traditional cattle company," he said.
"The extra percentage we're doing now is that we're actually aligned as a business and we're all focused on one goal.
"We're not all focused as individual business units on just turning off cattle, or just finishing cattle, or just killing cattle, or just selling beef - we're all focused as one company on delivering the ultimate eating outcome for our customer."
