Australia’s beef exporters prepare for a bumper year as borders reopen

Australian beef producers have found new markets and new ways of doing business during the pandemic. With the retail price of beef soaring and international borders reopening – many expect boom times ahead.

Dalene Wray is managing director of OBE Organic. Source: Supplied OBE Organic

Dalene Wray runs one of Australia’s oldest beef export companies, OBE Organic, and is also an industry innovator. This year, despite COVID-19 disruption, OBE Organic has continued to export and even diversified into new markets.

The growth is partly due to Austrade, the Australian Government's international trade promotion and investment attraction agency.

“Austrade has been absolutely critical to helping us to navigate these really difficult past few months,” she says.

Across the industry – pandemic restrictions and Australia's trade spat with China led to beef exports declining by 24 per cent compared with the previous year.

However, with the help of Austrade’s Middle East team, and through its $72 million AgriBusiness Expansion Initiative, OBE has found new ways to get Australian organic beef into foreign markets. 

Dalene Wray in Saudi Arabia. Source: Supplied Dalene Wray

“In Saudi Arabia, we worked with our agency partners, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Foreign Affairs to get a longer shelf life for our beef,” says Luisa Rust, Austrade’s Senior Global Engagement Manager.

Dalene explains: “While we exported to Saudi Arabia previously, [chilled beef] was limited to a 70-day shelf life. And last year we were so fortunate when our diplomats were able to negotiate an extension.

“Our product now has a 120 days shelf life. And what that means is that we can now send our product by sea freight.”

Family farmers

OBE Organic was formed in the 1990’s by pastoralists including Dalene’s family, raising cattle on native grasses free from pesticides or chemicals in Queensland’s far west.

“We process around 12,000 head a year, and those cattle are predominantly sourced from Channel Country,” Dalene says.

“The cattle graze on seven million hectares of certified organic land. To put that [land area] into perspective, it is around 40 per cent the size of Guangdong province in China.”

With the price of young cattle more than doubling in less than two years, Australian beef has reached record prices this quarter. And the global appetite for particularly organic Australian beef is rising.

“Our cattle graze in a natural environment we believe instils a really nice flavour in our beef. And it's certainly appreciated by consumers worldwide,” she says.

“We have customers in all corners of the globe and we have beautiful organic beef that's available for them.

As a fifth-generation beef farmer, Dalene took over as managing director in 2011, although her transition to the top job was unexpected.

“I was one of six children, and I had a twin brother called Deon. He  died tragically in a helicopter accident when we were 20 years old,” she explains.

“And that changed my life, as he was the one who was destined to take over the family business.”  

Despite an upbringing which defined clear roles for men and women in the small town of Birdsville, in Queensland’s far west, for the past decade Dalene has travelled the globe for board meetings and meeting buyers.

However all that stopped last year, when international borders closed.  It also limited Dalene’s ability to personally meet buyers and attend trade shows.

“The real challenge [during COVID-19] has been getting it out of our cold stores in Australia, into customers fridges around the world.”

Austrade has helped exporters like OBE Organic to get their goods on flights at a cost-effective rate.

“We export beef into places like Hong Kong and Thailand a couple of times a month. And with the support of Austrade's international Freight Assistance Mechanism, we've been able to maintain those markets,” Dalene says. 

A new UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement will progressively eliminate tariffs on Aussie beef over ten years, opening up a significant new market.

Having survived the worst of the pandemic disruption, Dalene is ensuring the long-term future for OBE farmers in the Channel Country she loves.

OBE Cattle on Channel Country. Source: Supplied OBE Organic

“My job and the job of our board, and agribusiness boards around Australia, is to set ourselves up for success over the next decade.

It’s also about preserving a family legacy – for future generations.

“Those 30 producers that came together and Thargomindah in the late 1990s had a dream.

“They recognized that the cattle that grazed in their region were special, their region was special and that there was an appetite for their product that was unrecognized.

“And I'm really grateful for the opportunity to continue that legacy.”

For more information contact www.austrade.gov.au/