Direct marketing and selling Shorthorn beef

a few essential practical guidelines

By Tim Riley

Are you thinking about direct marketing your own Shorthorn beef? The following article considers what you may need to do and offers a few essential practical guidelines. The content is informed by some of our Beef Shorthorn herd owners who are already marketing their own beef and responding to a growing market for native breed beef with good provenance.

Breeders who direct market their beef stand to improve returns on carcasses and so keep a greater part of the profit that would normally go to markets, buyers, meat processors and retail outlets. The additional return on a carcass can approximate from £500 up to £1,500 per carcass, however it does require investment in both time and resources.

Here are some of the experiences of herds to help others that want to get a better profit margin against their cattle.

1, do your arithmetic on which cuts and how many can be produced from a carcass. A good proportion will inevitably end up as mince or burgers but essentially you are aiming for the sum of the parts to give a comparative improved return over selling the beast on the hoof.

2, be sure you have customers to sell to and don’t make assumptions that people showing interest is the same as people paying you. Internet selling can work - Facebook/Instagram/Website, but if you are only producing a small number of carcasses a year then demand can fall off as people expect goods to be sent to them when they press the purchase button. If the goods aren’t ready, customers lose confidence in you. A very common observation was that demand is high but meeting it can be difficult.

3, ensure you have hygienic handling and packing facilities. The same goes for transport if you are picking up carcasses and delivering meat. The Local Authorities, Food Standards Agency, and Food Standards Scotland will all advise on what is needed in term of compliance and legislative requirements. Some investment in the correct equipment may well be needed and this will be an additional cost against income.

If you’ve read the above and are still excited to market direct, then the other decisions are down to you on what sort of meat do you intend selling and how does this fit with your broader agricultural enterprise?

The most popular killing age is between 19 to 25 months dependent on how quickly an animal can reach the ideal finish for your type of cattle, often between 350380kg deadweight. Grass fed systems may take longer with some animals going to 30 months. In calculating returns, remember that the size and the age of the animal, together with its condition and feeding regime will dictate its Killing Out % which will usually be between 50% and 55% of home weight. On the EUROP scale, aiming for R3-4/O+4 is popular. Different breeders use different approaches as regards heifer’s vs steers vs young bulls. All seem to work but killing age differs quite significantly; and some customers may be less keen on bulls.

There is also a growing market for mature beef - cull cows at the end of their reproductive life. You may have seen the various

TV shows and on-trend restaurants that advertise Mature or Cow Beef. This imports a tradition in Northern Spain where dairy cows and cattle, including Oxen, native to Spain are killed for the human food chain at ages sometimes exceeding 10 years. If the cows are well fleshed and well finished the meat is usually well marbled with a good depth of flavour. Contrary to expectation the steaks are usually very tender and other less modern cuts and joints are also gaining popularity. This is not a volume market, but it is developing. At our farm, Stoney Royd we have done this to a limited extent with cull cows, and it maximizes return significantly but does necessitate cold room space for up 40 to 50 days. It is also difficult to go back to under 30 months beef, once tasted!

Whatever, carcass type you market, the cutting specification and cold room space is important to achieve the product you want to sell and to optimize return. Abattoirs and big meat cutting facilities are, in general, not going to change their approach for a relatively small number of cattle. This means that either learning or securing the butchery skills is vital. Even local abattoirs and small butchers may show little interest in contract cutting and cold room maturing as they often only have limited cold room space with priority given to their own meat.

In marketing and dispatching meat, packaging and transport must be planned. Most producers will vacuum pack but a trend from the artisanal pork industry is to use brown or white paper, as used to be the way in local butchers 40 years or so ago. Customers prefer this presentation, but it does require rapid and efficient delivery.

Common feedback from producers was that courier companies can be a weak link in their plans for timely delivery. Losses through product spoiling when it gets left on a truck in a depot over the weekend seems to be a widespread issue. This argues for a strategy to keep the food miles low and have a local delivery system. One meat producer near me is now employing a bicycle delivery company to do deliveries within a 10-mile radius to good effect. One alternative is freezing the meat and packing to minimize thaw and finding a reliable transporter but generally customers find frozen product less appealing.

This article goes only a small fraction of the way toward guiding choices and offering ideas. It is intended to stimulate thinking about direct marketing and to encourage conversation between local breeders and with the Society on what could be done to help local breeders work together to minimize cost and to get great tasting Shorthorn beef on the menu.

The marketplace

Beef Shorthorn beef has a great backstory giving it increased public credibility and this is now starting to drive the market again.

Interestingly, the House of Lords noted in 1949 that Beef Shorthorns sold at auction had dropped from 4,002 in 1921 to 920 in 1948. In the late ‘80s it was below 100, but today, it has once again increased to around 400 and is on the rise.

My grateful thanks to all the herds that responded to my request for information. Hopefully, this is the start of more dialogue on the topic. Any ideas for collaborative approaches, securing grants and or sharing ideas can be sent to me for publicising by the Society. Please email me stoneyroyd@ icloud.com or clive@beefshorthorn.org While Shorthorn beef is once again relevant to current market demand, there is a growing segment of the public worried by environmental destruction, climate change and perceived health risks of red meat and so have bought less and less meat. Beef consumption in the UK dropped by nearly 17% between 2008 to 2019. Those that eat beef are starting to eat less meat but choose better; they want to know more about where it came from, what the animal ate and how it was cared for. That market appears to also be willing to pay more for better quality. So, new opportunities are there for farms to get a better return on their native breed cattle, particularly if pasture fed.