Solid demand in the US export market has been one of the driving factors behind growth for one of the largest producers of Certified Organic beef in Australia.
The Organic Meat Company (OMC) is a wholly-owned subsidiary
of Sanger Australia, a non-processor beef exporter with strong
connections in the US market.
Given Sanger’s history as a commodity meat trader, shifting up
to 10 percent of Australia’s entire beef exports each year, the move four years ago into the more highly specialised area of organics came as something of a surprise to some industry stakeholders.
However, Sanger saw it at the time as an emerging market
segment with prospects for growth and a high degree of ‘marketability’, while diversifying the company’s operations.
While the business now processes about 200 head weekly for international and domestic customers, the OMC is anything but an overnight success.
Building a successful, larger scale organic meat business is a long, slow and often painful process, according to OMC’s founder and manager, Alister Ferguson.
“We started off slowly-slowly and eased into the organic business.”
Since April last year, OMC has doubled its production of Certified
Organic beef, in the latest phase of development for the company.
“But any development in organic is a measured process. It’s not like turning on a tap,” Mr Ferguson said.
“It takes three years for a participating livestock producer to gain full organic certification.
"When we started the business, we established relationships with a core group of producers who we wanted to work with.
"As the business has grown and new customers have been established, we have added more supply.
“But because of the delicate balance in the organic beef market, it is important to carefully manage the development of both the supply and demand sides.”
Through livestock manager Peter Gall, OMC has established a mentoring program, working with conventional producers who show an interest in organic production.
At the other end of the scale, OMC in the past has also successfully approached conventional beef producers with a proposal to joining the company program.
During its establishment phase, OMC’s two biggest challenges were, continuity of supply and consistency of quality.
The supply issue has been managed by spreading the livestock
supply base across a broad geographic area.
Currently most of the company’s cattle are coming out of Queensland, because of the impact of widespread drought in
southern Australia.
“However, we still have access to certified processing plants in northern NSW and Victoria if we need them,” Mr Ferguson said.
“Should seasonal circumstances in southern regions turn around, we can easily resume sourcing cattle and processing in those areas.”
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