There is a lot of confusion amongst consumers when it comes to understanding the difference between grainfed and grassfed beef.

As a beef farmer who has been in the industry all of my life I have experienced being on “both sides of the fence” so it is no accident I now choose to grass finish our cattle.

My number one concern is animal welfare, I have worked in a cattle feedlot and most of the time it is not a pretty site, cattle are not meant to be in areas of tight confinement and fed a ration that is not part of their “natural” diet. All intensive feedlots use antibiotic feed additives in their rations that “modify” the bacteria in a cows stomach so the animal can eat the large amounts of grain without dying of grain poisoning.

In our grass-fed situation our stock are rotated around paddocks and always have access to grass or hay made from paddock grasses. Naturally better.

Next we need to be concerned with meat quality and food safety issues. The use of hormonal growth promotants within the feedlot sector is widespread, particularly in WA where the majority of our cattle in feedlots are fed for the local market, so they come into the feedlot young, are fed quick, hence the use of growth promotants, and slaughtered young. More often than not the carcases are not “aged” so this produces beef that may be tender, or not, and has very little flavour profile, bland, bland, bland. This is classic “factory farming”. Un-fortunately our farmers believe they are forced to go down this road as they see it as the only way to make a buck out of cattle farming, due to the huge problem in this state of the dis-connect between the farmer and the consumer (Not all feedlots feed this way and there are some that feed cattle for a much longer period at a slower rate that can produce a very good beef product, commonly referred to as “long fed”, however most of this beef is exported and very little finds it way to the local market, particularly here in WA)

It has also been proven through MLA research that the use of growth promotants can have a detrimental effect on overall eating quality of cattle they are used on. There is also of course the consumer health issues of using growth promotants and antibiotics in our food production systems. At this point in time Tasmania is the only state in Australia that has banned the use of growth promotants in the cattle industry.

With our organic certification we are prohibited from using growth promotants, and would never contemplate using them. With antibiotics we are allowed to use injections for extremely sick animals, however those animals must be quarantined, identified and never enter the organic production system, and we of course would never use antibiotics in any feeding situations. Naturally better.

We at Blackwood Valley Beef believe the flavour profile, health and environmental benefits we achieve with our beef is un-matched by any beef product on the market, grain-fed or grass fed.