The first shipment of slaughter bulls were loaded onto the Greyman Express at the Port of Townsville last week heading to Vietnam.
According to Frontier Internationals sales manager Tony Gooden, bulls are attractive to the Vietnam market and the company's customers were interested in buying more.
"Bulls are a preferred option of many lot feeders in Vietnam for their natural high growth rates, lean high yielding carcase, and darker meat colour," Mr Gooden said.
"They finely slice the meat and put into soup."
Past shipments from Townsville have often contained a mix of steers and some bulls, but this is believed to be one of the first comprised only of entire males.
The current cattle prices for steers are making the bulls more attractively priced for importers, and as the price offered is better than meatworks markets, it appealed to producers with bulls to sell.
Davie Henry, the Townsville-based buyer for Frontier International, said finding enough bulls to fill the shipment was a challenge in the current tight cattle supply environment.
A total of 2100 slaughter-ready mixed age Brahman and Brahman cross bulls with an average weight of 600 kilograms were sourced from central and northern Queensland.
Some were older retired herd bulls aged eight years or younger, while others were young stud bulls that were not able to be sold at bull sales, for reasons including failing semen testing standards.