Tom and Phoebe Bull on mission from paddock to palate

SHEEP WINNER 2018: THE challenge to create Australia’s best lamb chop is like waving a red rag to Tom and Phoebe Bull.

Marble baa: Tom Bull, with his children Hattie, 8, Hamish, 11, and Eddie, 6. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

THE challenge to create Australia’s best lamb chop is like waving a red rag to Tom and Phoebe Bull.

The pair operate the Lambpro sheep studs from Kinross Station, near Holbrook in southern NSW, where they run about 6000 ewes producing genetics for a broad client base that will this year produce a whopping 800,000 lambs collectively.

Not one to rest on their laurels, the Bulls see the newest arm of the business, Kinross Station Hampshire Downs, as a research, development and genetics platform from which to produce the best-tasting lamb through a focus on breeding sheep for intra-muscular fat, more commonly known as marbling.

In short, a base from which to develop “the Wagyu of the lamb world”.

“Beef has got the link between branding and quality nailed — Angus and Wagyu are now billion-dollar industries whereas lamb is still just a commodity,” says Tom, 42.

It was with this in mind that four years ago the Bulls started their own on-farm trial to determine which sheep breed produced the best-tasting lamb.

They identified the Hampshire Down performed particularly well for marbling and growth and, putting their money where their mouths were, purchased five of the only Hampshire Down flocks in Australia that had a background in flock performance recording.

They also launched the Prime Lamb Improvement Company to help them understand the profitability and consumer acceptance of their genetics. All information collected by the company is now used in the design and production of sale rams.

“Really it is a process of looking for that one sire that pops out the top and can do things others can’t … an absolute outlier … and breed from them,” Tom says.

The early results are promising. Now, 71 of the top 100 rams for marbling on the Sheep Genetics Australia database are Kinross rams, from a total pool of 45,000, and this year the Bulls plan to have lamb on plates in China and Japan as well as in top-end Melbourne and Sydney markets.

It’s with this global outlook in mind that Lambpro are the deserved winner of The Weekly Times Coles 2018 Sheep Farmer of the Year.

WINNER Sheep Farmer of the Year 2018

LAMBPRO, Tom and Phoebe Bull, Holbrook, NSW

ON FARM: TOM AND PHOEBE BULL