Why use old animals?

Cows used for breeding are kept on the farm for around five to eight years and some stay for up to 12 years.

The cows generate value from passing on their genes, not from their own meat quality.

Beef processor Greenham noticed breeders from small family farms in high-rainfall areas were graded surprisingly well with Meat Standards Australia and had impressive marbling, or intramuscular fat.

"Their cows really never have to go without grass," managing director Peter Greenham said.

"They've got grass 52 weeks of the year."

After selling meat from older animals to high-end restaurants in Melbourne and Sydney for a few years, the company launched a branded Vintage Beef product which is gaining traction in the export market.

"We've just got it into one of the highest-priced steakhouses in Chicago and it's also in the menu of quite a few of the big places in LA," Mr Greenham said.

The company is pursuing opportunities in China and Singapore.

Fifth-generation beef producer Nelson Bonney never expected his breeding cattle to be plated up in high-end restaurants.

"We tend to think of old cows as burger meat," Mr Bonney said.

"It's interesting that old cows taste good and have got this beautiful meat in them."

Suppliers like Mr Bonney receive $80 to $150 per head more than they would without the brand.

They hope establishing a brand now, while the market is high, will ensure the older animals retain a price premium if conditions change.

The variability in size and flavour of older animals is a potential barrier for restaurants embracing the product.

"As chefs, we tend to think everything needs to be really consistent to create efficiencies but I think it's really good to get back to the product," chef Massimo Mele said.

Know your cow

Dairy farmer Ben Geard shows his prized cows at the Hobart Show every year and uses it as a chance to bridge the rural/urban divide.

He starts with the basics: there is a difference between a dairy cow and a beef cow.

But Ben's own entrepreneurial spirit has blurred that distinction.

After a few chefs mentioned that old dairy cows in Spain were known as a delicacy, he experimented with dry-aging one of his own retired animals.

The experiment paid off and he is now sending the meat from his Holstein Friesians to restaurants across Hobart under the brand Old Cow Co.

Natalie Geard is using her marketing experience to turn around poor perceptions of old cows.

At the end of their milking life, the old cows enjoy six months on good pasture so they put on more weight.

Franklin Restaurant head chef Analiese Gregory said she was pleased Australians were eating dairy cows.

"It seems like a more fitting end, or a nicer end that respects the animal," she said.

"I used to live in Spain and the famous steak they have there is all actually 10 or 12-year-old dairy cow."

Dry-aging 101

Dry-aging involves dehydrating the meat in climate-controlled rooms for 80 to 150 days or longer.

The process makes the beef more tender and brings out the rich flavours.

"They are working animals and they've been working for 10 years being milked so the meat is tougher and there's a lot of connective tissue," Ms Gregory said.

"The meat does need that time for the enzymatic breakdown to make it tender."

When tucking into a juicy eye-fillet steak, you might prefer to avoid considering the age of the animal you're eating.

Most beef you eat comes from around two-year-old cattle.

But some Australian farmers are putting age front and centre, with brands like Vintage Beef and Old Cow betting consumers will spend more on older animals otherwise destined for pet food and hamburgers.

Older cows have often been dismissed as tough and tasteless, so their meat has gone into low-value products, but dry-aging their beef is proving a hit with chefs in Australia and abroad.

Like fine wine and George Clooney, beef gets better with age. Inspired by Galician beef from northern Spain, The Vintage Beef Company's farmers are turning their breeding cattle out to pasture for blissful retirement, where they feed entirely on grass and are "finished" on quality pasture.

While European foodies are going wild for steaks from Spanish beasts, more specifically the Galician Blond or Rubia Gallega breed, as old as 17, The Vintage Beef Company is allowing their roamers to mature in a relaxed environment until they are upwards of five years old for the British breeds and more than nine years of age for wagyu.

That's old in beef years.

Most Australian cattle are slaughtered before they reach 22 months.

'Because the cows are older, the meat has a rich, developed grass-fed flavour alongside superb marbling," says Trevor Fleming, marketing and communications manager with Greenham Gippsland.

"The result is a distinct and unique eating experience, enjoyed by Spaniards for years".

"The cattle are British and European breeds such as angus, hereford, murray grey, devon, shorthorn and charolais along side wagyu, all produced by Premium MSA Standard farmers in south-east South Australia, Western District of Victoria, Gippsland and Tasmania," adds Fleming.

"To have good pasture, you need reliable, consistent rainfall and a clean environment."

As the name suggests, grass-fedmeat comes from animals that have enjoyed an entirely pasture-fed existence. Feeding on different grass types, depending on region and climate, grass-fed cattle and sheep account for about two-thirds of overall beef and sheep meat production in Australia, the Meat and Livestock Association says.

"Grass-fed beef is regarded as having more flavour due to the diet of the livestock – richer and fuller –while grain-fed meat can be softer but not as punchy in flavour," says Fleming.

"As long as the cows have access to good quality pasture and they are finished when they are processed, they should make the grade of Marble Score 2+."

The Vintage Beef Company's product is most similar in flavour to the Vaca Vieja (old cow) beef from Spain and France.

However, the fat coverage on the surface of the beef is deeper,which protects the loin muscle (rib-eye, porterhouse) during the dry-ageing process.

"Due to the access we have to high-quality pastures all year round, we are the only product from the Australian beef supply chain with a comparable depth of flavour to the European product," says Fleming.

"Ultimately, the brand is about value adding this type of cattle and taking them out of the commodity sphere where they might just have been used for lower-priced export meat or for hamburgers."

Chefs are always looking for interesting products to add to their offering and The Vintage Beef Company answers this call.

"Rump or short-rib cuts deliver the most flavour. My favourite cut is the scotch fillet, cooked simply on the grill with olive oil and salt," says Fleming.

"Our beef is on menus of top restaurants such as Neil Perry's Rockpool Bar & Grill in Sydney and Frank Van Haandel's Stokehouse in St Kilda, Melbourne."

Beef harvested from older breeding animals has traditionally been consigned to lower-value muscle meat and trim markets, but a bold new brand program is looking to celebrate the unique qualities of beef from better-performing slaughter cows.

Vintage Beef Co, developed by Victorian and Tasmanian processor HW Greenham & Sons is arguably the first in Australia to explore a new branded beef market niche for quality grassfed cow beef.

The recently launched Vintage Beef Co brand program is already gaining some traction with retail butchers and chefs who want to offer something different on their menu or shopfront sidewalk chalk-board.

"Ultimately, the brand is about value-adding these type of cattle and taking them out of the commodity sphere where they might just be used for lower priced export jobs or for hamburgers," HW Greenham managing director Peter Greenham Jr told Beef Central. "Increasingly, chefs are looking for interesting products add to their offering, and Vintage Beef Co answers this call," he said.

Greenhams has been working with Sydney's famed Rockpool Bar & Grill for the past three to four years on the program's development, using the term, Cape Grim Vintage. Other high-end restaurants like Stokehouse have taken trial runs of 20 or so Robbins Island Wagyu cows at a time, mostly the loin cuts, for dry-aging, where the product is offered as a house special – here today gone tomorrow – and treated as something 'unique'.

Butcher's 'pre-conception' about cow beef

"Initially, we didn't develop the brand with butchers in mind, as the preconception of cow beef in the trade can be fairly negative," Mr Greenham said. "Side by side, yearling meat and quality cow beef can be very different to look at, with darker meat colour and yellow fat on the older grassfed cows, which requires a degree of consumer education."

"But now with more consumers understanding that creamier/yellow fat is not something to be worried about, we (and the butchers) can concentrate on promoting the product as one with a strong flavour with more savoury notes," he said.

Two of the foundations to the program are sourcing cattle with the right genetics and feed history, and a robust grading system.

"We have found that with rigorous MSA grading, we can knock out the darker meat colour bodies and get to a point where the product being marketed under the brand exhibits a nice ruby red colour, and also has some great marbling," Mr Greenham said.

Brand specs

Vintage Beef Co is being produced through Greenham Tasmania (Smithton) and Greenham Gippsland (Moe) meatworks from British breed beef cows (no dairy cows involved) that are at least five years of age (average is about 8-9 years, having completed their breeding life), or from Robbins Island Wagyu beef cows (ranging from 9-15 years of age).

All of the product is 100pc grassfed including the Wagyu, and certified by the third-party audited Greenham 'Never-Ever' program. Carcase weights are around 300-350kg.

The product is sold under two grades, based on marbling score: Reserva for MB2+ carcases and Galiciana for MB3+.  About 500 of these type of cattle are processed each week through the Smithton and Moe plants, with perhaps one third of these making the top Galiciana grade of marbling score 3+.

To optimise tenderness and MSA grading performance, the cow beef program employs tenderstretching in the chillers instead of conventional Achilles hanging. Tenderstretching promotes better eating quality in the hindquarter cuts, particularly in the striploins and rumps.

Spanish origins in older beef

The Spanish references in the carcase grades mentioned above pay homage to the Spanish industry tradition of producing beef from older animals, often ten years of age, called Galician Beef.

In fact to some exhibitors surprise, a striploin harvested from an eight-year-old Spanish animal received a gold medal in this year's World Steak Challenge in London (see earlier Beef Central report), against a field of entries mostly 12-30 months of age.

Vintage Beef Co product is said to be most similar to the Vaca Vieja (old cow) beef from the Spanish/French Basque region in flavour, but the fat coverage/surface of the Australian product is deeper which protects the loin muscle (rib eye, porterhouse etc) during the dry-aging process.

"We are the only product from the Australian beef supply chain with a comparable depth of flavour (due to access to high quality pastures year round) to the European product from older cattle," Greenhams says in briefing notes to customers.

The other style of Galician Beef as made famous by Bodega El Capricho's José Gordón is different, as he raises his oxen (steers) on a special diet of grain and grass for more than ten years.

"Whilst that style is incredible, Greenham's Vintage Beef will have a clean, minerally grassfed flavour with savory notes," the company told customers.

Recognising the 'breeder'

While much of Greenham's considerable success in the Natural Beef brand segment through its Cape Grim program focused on the 'Finisher story', Peter Greenham said it now saw the opportunity, through the Vintage Beef program, to further develop the 'Breeder story' as well.

"We already have relationships with hundreds of high quality breeders who sell us runs of quality finished cows," he said.

"The idea on the new Vintage Beef website (currently under development and expected to be launched in early 2019) will be to hone in on individual cattle breeders, who can tell their stories, their practices and their breeds and involve them more than they been to date, in the end-product," he said.

Greenhams has the ability to segment certain runs of cows from an individual producer entering the Vintage Beef program and sell them into larger restaurant groups as ‘specials’ so the farmer story can be carried through to the end-consumer.

"The restaurant has something unique, the farmer can get a plug and the consumer can learn about and try something new," Mr Greenham said.

The idea of eating a steak from a cow heading towards its geriatric years may not seem like a high-level gastronomic experience.

While most of the beef we eat in Australia is yearling (12 to 18 months), there's a worldwide trend towards eating cattle up to 20 years old as ethical butchers and sustainable farmers turn what was once almost a waste product into highly valued and incredibly delicious beef.

"Mature cattle are already being consumed, but mostly as ground beef (for burgers)," says American butcher Adam Danforth, an outspoken proponent of sustainable meat production.

The James Beard award-winning author is at the forefront of a growing movement in the US that recognises older cattle as viable sources of high-quality meat. "This means moving away from grinding the entire carcass and appreciating the profound flavour that is available," says Danforth from his home in Oregon.

The meat from older animals won't be as tender, he acknowledges. "The muscles develop in ways that decrease tenderness, mainly through stronger connective tissue and strengthened fibres. But I will take the extraordinary depth of flavour over 'melt in your mouth' tenderness any day."

The main reason we don't get to eat a lot of older animals is pure economics, says Victorian butcher and farmer Allen Snaith, of Warialda Belted Galloway. "The meat industry is centred around young animals that are grown out, fattened up and turned off as quickly as possible. Feed is money and it is simply not affordable to keep an old breeder on the farm if she is no longer productive."

Dairy cows finish their productive life around five years and beef breeders up to double that. These older cattle are sold off as "choppers", an inglorious end in which they are slaughtered and roughly butchered, their muscles boxed, frozen and exported to end up in burgers in the US.

"You hate seeing it happen," Snaith says. Some of his animals, however, are temporarily saved from that fate. Snaith has instigated a mature beef program, carefully selecting the healthiest "old girls", which are sent to a graze on rich pastures in the Yarra Valley for six months. Over this time their condition improves, and they put on weight – around 60 kilograms.

He picks the prime cuts and sends them to top chefs such as Matt Stone at Oakridge in the Yarra Valley, who dry-ages the beef to improve flavour and increase tenderness.

Snaith receives close to $13 a kilogram for these animals, compared with $1.50 a kilogram live weight for a chopper.

One of Australia's strongest advocates for eating older beef is Sydney chef Neil Perry.

"The depth of flavour is second to none," he says.

For many years he was one of the few voices in this country championing the quality of mature beef. His advocacy was largely inspired by a revelatory lunch at Asador Etxebarri, in the mountains between Bilbao and San Sebastian Spain's Basque Country, at the turn of this century. "You go to Northern Spain and the consumption of older animals is simply a way of life," says Perry. At the wood-grill restaurant presently ranked 10th on the World's 50 Best Restaurants, chef Victor Arguinzoniz uses Galician dairy cows aged around 14. "In that part of the world they are eating dairy cattle that are up to 20 years old."

Over the past decade Perry has been quietly creating demand for older meat with the Cape Grim dry-aged vintage 60-month grass-fed steaks he serves at his Rockpool Bar and Grill restaurants in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. Older breeders from angus and hereford herds are sourced from Northern Tasmania by the Greenham meat company, owners of the Cape Grim brand. They select the best animals and send prime cuts to Perry, who dry-ages them. There a 250-gram fillet steak sells for $59.

Following the success of this experience and reacting to the rise in international demand for older beef, Greenham has developed a new brand called The Vintage Beef Co, which launches in a few weeks. It will result in cows around six to eight years and up to 12 years being selected in the field.

"You can't just process any old cow and think she is going to eat well," says the company's managing director, Peter Greenham.

Only breeding cows that have been exceptionally well cared for through their lives are sent for slaughter. The carcasses are then graded and the bottom grade is sent off for mince. The second and first grade are hung in a "tender stretch" to optimise tenderness in the prime muscles. The best cuts of the second grade are kept, alongside the carcasses from the top grade, to be sold under the Vintage Beef Co. brand. The brand will also include cattle up to 13 years old from the Robbins Island wagyu herd. The Vintage Beef Co. sells large cuts on the bone to restaurants and butchers for dry-ageing.

"Proper ageing is essential to the texture of beef from older animals," says Jerome Hoban of Gamekeepers, based in the Melbourne suburb of Moorabbin. The meat distributor and smallgoods manufacturer has invested almost a quarter of a million dollars in a new dry-ageing facility. The low-temperature and controlled-humidity technology allows the naturally occurring enzymes to break down the strong muscle fibres creating meat with full flavour and a pleasant mouthfeel.

"The older animals do take longer to dry-age to get them to be nice and tender," he says.

Hoban is following the European model and sourcing old milking cows, starting with seven-year-old jersey cows from the lush dairy country of South Gippsland in Victoria's east. "While normally we age beef for 28 days, we will be taking out these animals to five to six weeks," he says.

Milk breeds, like the ones served in Asador Etxebarri, have deep yellow fat from the accumulation of naturally occurring beta carotenes in the grass. Hoban concedes that while this is delicious, consumers used to yearling beef with white fat, will need educating. "I think very shortly you will be seeing a lot more pubs and restaurants offering not only grass-fed and grain-fed but also offering a steak from an older, dry-aged animal," says Hoban.

The proof, however, is in the eating.

In this case, a 500-gram sirloin from an eight-year-old cow. It is one of the first steaks from the Vintage Beef Co. and was dry-aged by Gary McBean at Gary's Quality Meats at Melbourne's Prahran Market. "We have trialled this with customers who spend hundreds of dollars each week on steak and they think it is the best they have had," says McBean.

We grill our sample medium rare and rest it for 10 minutes yet there are still signs of marbled fat through the deep red flesh. It carries a full beefy aroma and the attractive punch of seared meat. In the mouth it is more than juicy. It is ridiculously rich, with a flavour that goes on and on like a shout bouncing around a canyon. The finish is clean and pleasant, with a lingering sensation of savouriness. Tender? Yes, it yields to the knife and gives way under pressure from the teeth, but it doesn't melt in the mouth. This steak is all about flavour.

Danforth agrees. "Meat from older animals is delicious and very worthy of being a centre-of-the-plate protein." He says that because of the strong connective tissue between the muscles, older animals sometimes need to be butchered differently, something will be demonstrating when he visits Australia next week. "These animals deserve our respect."

Victorian farmer Allen Snaith adds: "I hate sending the old girls off in a truck to be turned into mince for American burgers so I feel like it's doing them justice to give them a good send off and let them go out with a bang."

Adam Danforth will be appearing at Slow Meat Symposium 2018 on September 23-24, in Daylesford, Victoria and at Feather and Bone in Marrickville, Sydney, on September 29.