Brook family powers on from Birdsville base

Australia’s most experienced organic beef producers – they sent their first shipment to Japan in 1998 – have come a long way since those early days.

Where David, the family patriarch, remembers cattle being taken out twice a year to Betoota or Maree by drovers when he had just left school, these days they have to meet weekly market demands.

In a system he describes as “just-in-time” production, dozens of trucking yards have been built close to where their cattle graze, supported by road and water improvements, so that staff can move at a moment’s notice to draft cattle up and put them on trucks.

“We’re mustering in the first week in January these days, loading at night with lights on,” he said.

“We wouldn’t have been able to do that without all the trucking yards and the coolers, but when we moved into organics, cattle had to be available every week.

“We kill at Stanbroke (abattoir at Grantham) 49 weeks a year so it’s important for staff to be able to move quickly.”

Despite this, the 40,000 head poll Hereford herd, 12,000 of them breeders, aren’t confined to many paddocks on the properties that include Adria Downs, Kamaran Downs, Alton Downs and Cordillo Downs in western Queensland, and Murnpeowie, affectionately known as Mumpy, in South Australia.

The size of the properties – Adria Downs for example is 870,000 ha – means it’s more practical to have the “right” stocking rate rather than be moving cattle around a lot.

The company also owns Gilling at Goondiwindi, a strategic move in the OBE Organic supply chain.

“Cattle are only there for a short period when the rest of the operation might be affected by hot weather or road closures,” David said. “Operating on mostly dirt roads isn’t an excuse for not supplying markets around the world.”

Showing how the business has grown since its infancy, when the Brook family and like-minded producers took a gamble on the organic pathway with a 2600kg shipment to South Korea in the late 1990s, these days it freights between 70,000 and 100,000kg each week to a variety of markets.

Two-thirds of their product is exported, to a variety of regions – North America, Asia and from about five years ago, to the Middle East.

David said they discounted Europe “early in the piece”, partly because of market quotas and partly because currency differentials with South America meant Europe could source its meat a lot cheaper from that region.

“Asia was a natural market for us, we could service it better and tariffs have dropped under free trade agreements,” he said.

“The organic trim market in North America has been strong in the last several years too, for organic burgers and hot dogs.”

In contrast, the Middle Eastern business isn’t high volume. David explained that it was serviced mostly by air freight and so only the very best product could be sent affordably.

“Some of the markets we do are to give us insurance against other markets folding,” he said. “As good as any market is, you can’t put all your eggs in one basket.”

Reflecting on where Brook Pastoral and OBE Organic has come from and what’s ahead, David said the supply base was expanding at a fast enough rate.

Every South Australian property with Birdsville Road access has organic certification these days, enough for David to say that organic meat has become a mainstream product.

Where he is focusing his attention is on developing markets that understand organic beef qualities enough to pay a premium for it.