Rockhampton and Australian Beef

We are going through Rockhampton. Before and after vast pastures dried up by the sun with some water troughs and cattle. The number of cows seem so little in the immensity of the landscape. Within the city, cow statues everywhere. A big sign on the road lets us know we are now in « Rockhampton, the beef capital ». So we go, let’s try some beef from Rockhampton right ? We start looking through the internet for a good restaurant serving it. Instead of an address, we find an article titled « Central Queensland graziers bringing local steak back to the 'beef capital of Australia' ». Strange isn’t it ?

We discover that in reality, the majority of the beef from this region, which is the first beef producing region of Australia, is transported straight into some big food companies manufactures to be packed together with beef from all over Australia before being redistributed in supermarkets all over Australia. Hard to near impossible even a few years ago to find local beef in the region that produces the most of it !

Luckily, this article, dating from August this year, tells us that some graziers have taken up the flame and invested sufficient efforts in order to set up a short and local supply chain (Something being made very difficult since small slaughter places are now in very few numbers) that could provide meat to some butchers and restaurants in the city all year long.

Here we go ! It is not because it was like this and that all graziers sold their meat to long industrialised supply chains that it was not possible to do differently. Alternatives ! Local farmers proud of their region and products started to change something there !

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-04/qld-beef-capital-rockhampton-without-local-made-steak/9959252