THE new beef brand from Australia’s largest meat processor JBS taps into the company’s 40 years of experience in both producing and marketing grainfed beef and its unique position in running the country’s only two integrated feedlot and processing facilities.
JBS will launch its new premium brand Yardstick, a marble score two-plus grainfed offering, in Toowoomba today.
Yardstick beef will be sold under its label in high-end restaurants and hotels both domestically and internationally.
It is effectively the cream of the beef produced through the JBS grainfed program at its two integrated feedlot and processing facilities, Beef City and Riverina.
Until now, most of the product, predominantly from European-influence cattle, has been incorporated into the Beef City Black Grade marble score one brand.
The launch of Yardstick is about perfecting consistency in brands and delivering a premium eating quality beef brand to customers around the world.
With an established, aligned supply chain and the refined expertise to consistently turn off a high eating quality product, JBS was in an ideal position to meet the growing demand for very high quality beef, marketing executive Brad De Luca said.
Yardstick will compliment the breed-specific JBS brands that are supplied by beef meeting the same marble score and tenderness criteria, such as Thousand Guineas Shorthorn and Riverina Angus.
Commercial manager northern Brendan Tatt said Yardstick was the result of incremental gains on-farm, in the feedlot and at the plant level that had put JBS “in the enviable position of being able to lay claim to being a benchmark by which all others should be measured.”
“As a team we have been fine tuning our systems to ensure that our customers can expect nothing but the highest quality and consistency when they buy and rely on our branded beef products,” he said.
“Essentially, Yardstick is not a new product for JBS Australia, rather a considered strategy to
consolidate our high performing marble score two-plus grain fed beef under a single brand that promises a reliable and high quality eating experience.”
The integrated facilities created the optimum environment to produce highly-marbled and tender beef due to the low-stress of simply walking cattle to the plant and avoiding that extra journey on a truck, he said.
Mr De Luca said customers working with JBS from every corner of the world saw that incorporation as a very strong competitive advantage.
It delivers reduced costs of production, increased carcase performance and a positive animal welfare outcome.
While it would largely be up to chefs to talk about that element of the Yardstick story with the end consumer, JBS was definitely making moves towards communication further through the supply chain, Mr De Luca said.
It’s recently-launched Aussiebeef.com.au site, which shows consumers how to best choose and cook beef, was an example.
Shan Goodwin
Shan Goodwin steers ACM’s national coverage of the beef industry. Shan has worked as a journalist for 30 years, the majority of that with agricultural publications. She spent many years as The Land’s North Coast reporter and has visited beef properties and stations throughout the country and overseas. She treats all breeds equally. Contact 0427686187. E: s.goodwin@austcommunitymedia.com.au
Shan Goodwin steers ACM’s national coverage of the beef industry. Shan has worked as a journalist for 30 years, the majority of that with agricultural publications. She spent many years as The Land’s North Coast reporter and has visited beef properties and stations throughout the country and overseas. She treats all breeds equally. Contact 0427686187. E: s.goodwin@austcommunitymedia.com.au
