Wagyu breeder Selwyn Maller launches The Phat Wag butcher in Goomeri

A Gympie region butcher is about to enter an exciting new era after being bought by one of the directors of the Australia Wagyu Association

Jocelyn and Selwyn Maller are the new owners of The Phat Wag butchery at Goomeri.

Goomeri’s burgeoning business community is getting further beefed up with a director of the Australian wagyu Association taking over the town’s butchery and herding it into a new era.

Self-described “born-and-bred cattle man, third generation” Selwyn Maller and his wife Jocelyn are the new owners of The Phat Wag, a luxury butchery built on the back of Wagyu beef.

And while it is a new era for the business, for the Mallers there is a sense of coming home: the shop was owned by Mrs Maller’s aunt and uncle 17 years ago.

Wagyu breeders for more than 20 years, the Mallers own a multitude of properties including cattle farms at Mitchell, Roma, and Wallumbilla, and irrigation farms at Murgon.

Mr Maller said it was through these latter ventures he became aware the butcher shop was for sale.

So far they like what they have seen from the region.

“We find Goomeri to be a vibrant little town,” Mr Maller said.

Mr Maller said the shop will include online services once its fully up and running, with new boning and cold rooms.

A more traditional spelling for the business name was considered, Mr Maller said, but a relative instead pointed them in a PHAT direction: perfect, hot and tempting.

“We thought that was pretty accurate,” Mr Maller said.

And although the shop’s doors are not expected to open until July, there are already more plans in the works.

Mr Maller said boning and cold rooms would be built on the block, allowing the shop to open up online.

The business will be self-sufficient and entirely local, growing on their farms and using Nolan Meats for the slaughtering.

“It’ll all be our own wagyu product,” he said.

It will be at the forefront of the technological curve as well; Mr Maller said IVF treatment was used in the cattle production, and their system will keep track of every last detail of its journey.

“We can tell its story from embryo to plate,” he said.