How Robbins Island Wagyu runs a thriving business

Alex and Sarah Hammond have refined the recipe for award-winning beef from their family farm in northwest Tasmania. Discover how they are taking on the world.

Alex and Sarah Hammond run the thriving operation Robbins Island Wagyu in Tasmania. The siblings are pictured with their horse Juliet. Picture: Phillip Biggs

Once a month on a Monday morning, long before dawn, the Hammond family will rug up and meet in the subarctic chiller of the local abattoir at Smithton in Tasmania’s northwest, where they’ll spend the next few hours meticulously photographing hundreds of beef carcasses.

With a well-trained eye and the help of a hi-tech meat grading camera, Australian Wagyu pioneer Keith Hammond, his son, Alex, and daughter Sarah will painstakingly analyse their cattle to determine the quality and marbling of their prized beef.

By the time they’re warming their hands around a cup of coffee several hours later, they’ll have collected enough data to tell them how their bulls are performing, which females they perform best in, and which combinations are producing the finest cuts of their world-renowned Robbins Island Wagyu.

“I really enjoy it, I love being with the kids and seeing what they are doing,” says Keith with a noticeable American twang.

“We want to keep improving all the time and I just love seeing the performance of the genetics. It’s very different to how I started out and how my father did things.”

For Keith, 65, and his brother John, 66, who were born in Tasmania but raised on a wheat farm in Oklahoma, seeing their finely marbled beef prepared for export is the realisation of a dream they shared more than three decades ago, when they took a huge leap of faith and began breeding Wagyu cattle about as far away from their native Japan as you can get, on the windswept tip of the northwest Tasmanian coast.

“Wagyu weren’t readily accepted by the Australian cattle industry back then,” Keith explains. “It was all quite new, there was only a handful of farmers doing Wagyu and the industry was very traditional in the sense that most beef farmers, who were generational, followed suit with their family. If your father was in Angus or Hereford, that’s what you did. We knew it was going to take a while to produce high-quality beef that the Asian market paid a premium for, but we were in it for the long run and it was worth the wait.”

Thirty years on from that first delivery of speculative progeny, they’ve created a 2000-strong herd and an enviable brand, Robbins Island Wagyu, that is exported globally and can retail for upwards of $250 a kilogram.

Furthermore, their kids have now built on that pioneering work, to create a sophisticated breeding and genetics enterprise, with the Hammonds part of the leading Poll Wagyu genetics program in the world.

“They were go-getters, and still are,” says Alex Hammond of his father Keith and uncle John’s efforts.

“They rolled up their sleeves and had a go, even though they probably didn’t really know what they were getting into back then. They put in a lot of hard work and made some really good calls based on the limited information they had. They were real pioneers.”

Robbins Island Wagyu muster in northwest Tasmania.

‘BEST-TASTING BEEF IN THE WORLD’

At 7am every morning, rain, hail or shine, the next generation of Hammonds and their crew meet at Montagu, the family’s mainland property just a stone’s throw from historic Stanley and Smithton, and board a boat for the 10-minute hop-step across the channel to nearby Robbins Island.

Their unusual commute to and from work is determined by the tidal movements of Robbins Passage which separates Tasmania from the pristine 10,000-hectare island that is now the centre of the family’s international Wagyu operation, and the neighbouring Walker Island, a scrubby 700-hectare islet used to fatten cattle in winter – both of which have been in the Hammond family for decades.

It is on this rugged peninsula, surrounded by white-sand beaches, lush grazing pasture, saltwater and seaweed, and the world’s purest air, according to the nearby Cape Grim Base Monitoring Station, that the Hammonds now produce what is regarded by some as the best tasting beef in the world.

“When Dad and John started out, Robbins was about 1000 acres of grass across two big open paddocks, and the rest bush. You’d have to muster these enormous paddocks just to get the cattle into the yards, it was pretty wild,” says Alex, now the managing director of the family business.

Alex, 35, sister Sarah, 33, younger brother Chauncey and cousin Ben are the fifth generation to be working the three properties that make up the Robbins Island Wagyu operation.

Since Alex took the day-to-day reins in 2015, the young guns have built on Keith and John’s work, creating a highly sophisticated genetics and breeding program to produce the highest-value carcasses, combining elite marbling, high carcass weights and large ribeye areas.

They’ve proudly achieved higher weights than the industry standard while recording maximum 9-plus marble scores.

In addition, in 2015, they formed a joint-venture, Poll Wagyu, with the Hamblin family at Queensland’s Strathdale Wagyu and the de Bruin family of Mayura Wagyu at Mt Gambier in South Australia, to produce the horn-free Wagyu, removing the need for costly and complex dehorning of herds.

“Proving up genetics in Wagyu is a long-term process but we are at the point now where we have really elite poll bulls and females and we are punching ahead,” Alex says.

According to Matt McDonagh, chief executive of the Australian Wagyu Association, Australia is the largest exporter of Wagyu beef in the world, shipping about 70,000 tonnes, with a production value of $2 billion annually, and plenty of room for market growth.

“Japan have more Wagyu than Australia but they only export a small percentage of this, approximately 8000 tonnes,” McDonagh says.

“The Australian Wagyu sector is leading the world in implementing innovations to improve the quality and efficiency of production. We have 50 brands that export to different international markets.”

Sarah Hammond, Maddi Robinson, Patricia Clarke and Alex Hammond working on the farm. Picture: Phillip Biggs

SCIENTIFIC APPROACH

Measuring marbling, and managing complex data bases that can trace a calf from birth to the butcher, would’ve been unthinkable to Captain James Holyman, Keith and John’s maternal grandfather, when he purchased the islands in 1916 from the Van Diemen’s Land Company as a holiday retreat. But his descendants have clearly inherited the family’s entrepreneurial spirit.

The Holymans were transport pioneers, at one point owning 60 ships ferrying cargo and passengers around Tasmania and to the mainland, along with Holyman Airways Aviation, which later merged with ANA. In 1945, Holyman Airways Aviation flew more airmiles than any other airline in the world, just traversing Australia, and at their peak employed 3000 people.

Captain James Holyman largely used Robbins Island for family holidays but even still, built three dairies and established a small cheese factory too which exported cheese to England. At one point, families lived on the island to run the dairies, but it wasn’t run as a profitable business, it was a sideline to the family’s shipping and aviation interests.

In the 1950s after the death of patriarch Sir Ivan Holyman, the family decided to consolidate assets and Captain James sold the islands to his daughter, Mary, and her husband, Gene Hammond, a dashing American marine who flew B-25 Mitchell bombers in Rabaul, Papua New Guinea, during World War 11.

Gene and Mary began married life in Tasmania at Montagu, but when their three boys, Keith, John and Chauncey were young, Gene moved the family back to Oklahoma, where he had a 1620-hectare wheat farm, on a thin strip of land known as the Oklahoma Panhandle.

The Panhandle was known as No Man’s Land until 1890. Dry, dusty, and landlocked in the middle of America, the endless flat wheat plains of Oklahoma were a far cry from the sun and surf and rolling green pastures of Tasmania.

“It was a completely different experience, Tasmania was a paradise compared to Oklahoma,” Keith recalls.

“We were young enough that we made the adjustment, but it was difficult, especially for my mother at first. She came to love it and the people were wonderful to her, but I think we all longed for Tasmania.”

The family returned to Tassie for about eight months in early 1971 when Keith was 13 years old, rekindling his love for Robbins Island, and by 1980, Keith came home permanently to try his hand at his own farming enterprise.

Brothers John and Chauncey followed, and eventually Gene and Mary came home to Tasmania too. Keith and John weren’t interested in following their father into wheat and grain, they knew the luminous pastures of Tasmania’s north was prime cattle country and they started out by agisting Herefords, then bought their own Angus.

“In the early ’90s we recognised we needed to be moving forward, not treading water,” Keith says.

“We saw the Asian markets as the future and studied their food and what cattle they preferred and felt that marbled beef would be a product you could sell at a premium price into Asia for decades to come – if we could produce it. And that’s why we went with Wagyu, we knew it was going to take time to establish but we wanted to build something for our kids down the track.

“The island has been in the family for generations, and we wanted to keep it that way.”

Keith Hammond pictured with some of his cattle. Picture: Phillip Biggs

GO FOR GROWTH

Whether it was by luck or design, the Hammond brothers’ fortunes changed when a window of opportunity opened in the early 1990s, after US Vice President Walter Mondale placed pressure on the Japanese to allow Wagyu into America to resolve a trade imbalance.

There was no protocol for Wagyu to come to Australia, but seizing the moment, the Hammonds were able to acquire progeny through the US and Canada.

They started their breeding program in 1993 with progeny from Michifuku, a famous bull from the Tajima bloodline, arguably the most famous of all Wagyu bloodlines – the breed had only ever been farmed in Japan.

In 1997, Japan deemed Wagyu a national treasure and swiftly slammed the door shut on future exports.

“We were very lucky,” says Keith who went on to become one of the founders of the Australian Wagyu Association. “There were a handful of others that brought in embryos too, we were on the wave of Wagyu.” Just 50 per cent of the initial embryos survived but the Hammonds persisted and it’s paid off, since then they’ve implanted an estimated 50,000 embryos.

“I remember when the first Wagyu calves hit the ground in 1995,” Alex says. “I was young but it was a big thing for Dad and John, we had 20 calves in that first year, now we have 2000 breeders, so we’ve come a long way.”

In those early days, the cattle were exported live to a Japanese feedlot, but today, through a partnership with meat company Greenham’s, the cattle are processed, boxed and branded at Smithton under their Robbins Island Wagyu label, and distributed across Asia.

The cattle are retained on pasture for at least two years before being finished with grain to achieve the consistency of marbling. Getting the cattle from Robbins Island back to Montagu is one of the Hammonds’ greatest challenges, and relies on charmingly old-fashioned skills of horsemanship and hard work.

A dozen times a year, Alex and his siblings, often led by Uncle John, saddle up their mounts and head off on the famous “saltwater muster”, regarded as one of Australia’s most unique cattle musters.

They’ll round up a mob and drive them 10 kilometres along the white-sand beaches, crossing Robbins Passage to Montagu.

The journey, along some of the world’s most spectacular, if not wild, coastline where winds can come unabated from the tip of South America, can take up to three hours and requires carefully navigating tidal movements.

The herd must hit the beach at low tide to successfully cross the pooling seawater before the rushing tide returns. It’s precision work and they haven’t lost a cow yet.

The muster is loved by the broader community too, and often dozens of local stockmen will come along for the ride.

“The cattle drives are magic, everyone loves it,” Alex says.

“We used to throw the horses in with the cattle the day before, so they’d barely seen a horse, they’d hit the beach for the first time, with waves and foam and it was pretty wild at times.

“We’d always get them across, but it was hard work and you’d be chasing after cattle, turning them back, it was a bit of a rodeo. Now we’ve got it down to a fine art, we break the weaners in with the horses and get them well trained so that when we hit the beach for the muster, they don’t even get out of a walk a lot of the time.

“The hardest part is getting them into the crossing … they’re wondering what the hell is going on, you can see the sand on the other side but it looks a long way off and that’s always the most challenging part.

“We have to make sure we are pressuring them enough to get them to go but not giving them any gaps to break between the horses. Usually once we are across the first crossing it’s pretty calm and cruisy from then on.”

Robbins Island Wagyu product.

GENERATION NEXT

Succession planning can often prove tricky for generational farming families but in the case of the Hammonds, Keith and John were crystal clear when they purchased those first Wagyu embryos that they were establishing the business to hand over as soon as they possibly could, intent on embracing the knowledge of the next generation.

From his earliest years trailing his father around the farm, Alex had a passion for farm life. He completed an animal science and agricultural business degree in the US and intended taking time off to travel around South America.

However, during a visit home in 2015, he could see that Keith and John needed a hand and he could also see the potential to broaden and expand their work in genetics, as he’d been learning about at Oklahoma State University.

“Mum and Dad wouldn’t let us work on the farm straight away after we finished school, they insisted we had to go away and do something else, whether that was university or get a trade, or work for someone else,” says Alex who now lives at Montagu with his wife Lucy and daughters Rita, 2½, and Lettie, 1. “But it was always my dream to come back.”

Impressed by Alex’s contemporary farming and agribusiness acumen, within two years Keith and John promoted him to general manager of Robbins Island Wagyu. They could see he had the ability and drive to keep the business moving forward. “He added a whole new dimension to the business that John and I didn’t have,” Keith says. “The skills you need to take it to a highly professional level.”

Sarah soon joined the business too. Unlike Alex, Sarah decided young that she wasn’t going to be a farmer, and when she finished school she took an office job on the mainland.

Very quickly though, she realised that being glued to a desk every day wasn’t for her. At the encouragement of her mum, Lisa, she enrolled at uni studying ag science and found her calling.

After graduating with first-class honours, she headed to London backpacking, and at the end of two years travelling, returned to the farm. “Ten years later I’m still here,” she laughs, having driven her four-wheel drive to the very top of remote Walkers Island to get phone reception.

“In front of me I can see waves crashing in and around the rocky little Petrel Islands that sit off shore in Bass Strait, there’s massive hummocks behind me and it’s quite a windy day, very typical but absolutely beautiful. Where else in the world would you want to be?”.

The siblings found their groove very quickly. Sarah runs the business and finance operations, including the all-important carcass and genetics data, while Alex manages the day-to-day operation and cattle direction.

“Alex came back a couple of years before I did and he was really able to bring Dad and John’s vision to life and grow it, he brought in the real acumen around the data, tracking the carcasses, knowing what we produce and he developed it into a very sophisticated business,” Sarah says.

“It’s chalk and cheese today from how my father and John, and our grandfather worked, it’s very scientific and data driven, but it’s very exciting to see what we can achieve in the future.”

Jess, their older sister, is a teacher and doesn’t work on the farm but still joins the family for the muster, while the youngest, Chauncey is involved in the day-to-day cattle work and managing the machinery.

Their cousin Ben, John’s son, runs the pasture management, critical to the operation and has overhauled their land use making it more efficient and sustainable. Currently they are re-fencing their paddocks into manageable seven-hectare paddocks to better rotate herds, while “wallaby-proofing”.

“We have a big issue with game on the island,” Alex says.

For Keith and John, seeing their children pick up the ball and run with it, is incredibly gratifying and they are excited about the future of the much-loved business.

“It’s a great team and I love being with them, seeing how they work and what they’re doing. They come to John and I and seek our advice, but we have great confidence in them,” Keith says.

“Sarah and Alex’s interest in following the data and building on it has really driven us forward. They work so well together and complement each other and it honestly just makes me so happy to see them all succeed.

“Of everything we’ve done, our greatest achievement is the family and how we’ve all stuck together. The kids are great people, and I’m immensely proud of them.”

Perhaps that’s down to good genetics? “Improved genetics,” he laughs.

Originally published as How Robbins Island Wagyu runs a thriving business