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Quality and taste a cut above - Tasmanian Country

2011-01-07 Tasmanian beef farmers were commended on the quality of their grassfed cattle and urged to maintain current management practices at an open day at Greenham's Smithton plant.


More than 300 farmers gathered in Smithton to inspect Greenham's newly renovated, state of the art boning room and to meet Australian and overseas customers.

Managing director Peter Greenham said the event had been very successful.

"It was a great opportunity for everybody along the supply chain to meet each other and exchange information." Mr Greenham said. "Our major Japanese customer, Aleph, who operate a very large chain of restaurants, were also here. They love to meet the farmers who supply their beef.”

"They also had a production crew here making a TV commercial that will be shown across Japan. It will be a great promotion for our beef, and also for Tasmania's clean, green image."

Improvements to the boning room had raised the plant's kill capacity to over 400 head per day. Other works had included increasing chiller capacity and the installation of a larger boiler, Mr Greenham said.

"We wanted to give our farmers and opportunity to see what we have done. We believe in establishing partnerships up and down the supply chain because we're all in the industry together, and will gain the most benefit by working together."

Greenham's Tasmanian grassfed beef brands were gaining a great reputation, wholesaler Don Tolomeo from DRJ in Sydney told guests.

"We knew it was an excellent product as soon as we got our hands on it," Mr Tolomeo said. "That's been our experience - get customers to try it and they are sold. We had one customer that we couldn't get to try it. Eventually I gave him some product and he rang back within an hour wanting more meat than I had in stock at the time," he said. "He's now one of our biggest customers."