Koallah Farm at Camperdown takes meat to the next level

YOU could be forgiven for thinking the Castle family may have bit off more than they can chew.

Taking meat to the next level

YOU could be forgiven for thinking the Castle family may have bit off more than they can chew with their paddock-to-plate business.

But their hunger “to get control of our own destiny” has paid off through increased sales and growing demand for their products and services.

As well as milking 230 dairy cows, the Castles run the ­vertically integrated Koallah Farm business at Camperdown, in Victoria’s Western District.

From their 810ha they breed livestock to supply their two Melbourne butcher shops. They’ve been able to take ownership of their product through building and on-farm abattoir and boning room.

The facility, which cost about $750,000 and opened last November, generates extra income through service kills for other farmers.

It processes lambs and beef cattle, with a view to start slaughtering pigs in the coming weeks.

WHEY FORWARD

KOALLAH Farm comprises managing director Steven ­Castle, his father, Max, and sisters Tania and Natasha, and is centred on the 405ha home farm on the banks of Lake Purrumbete (they own several blocks around Camperdown).

As well as the dairy cows, they run 200 beef females, predominantly Shorthorn-­Hereford, which calve in April, May and June. Steven, who has a background in information technology, said the paddock-to-plate business idea was implemented about six years ago as a form of a succession planning and a desire by a new generation to move into the beef trade.

“Dad still milks the cows at the moment but none of us kids are passionate about milking cows every day,” Steven said.

“We started doing a little bit of work on direct marketing small numbers of beef from our own properties and it has gone from there.”

They used third-party abattoirs to kill their beef at 10-14 months or 200-250kg carcass weight and dabbled in supplying beef and lamb cuts (mostly sourced from farmers around Camperdown) to the popular farmer’s market trade. About this time they also started a free home delivery service to Ballarat, Colac, Geelong and Melbourne (two deliveries are now required a week).

Paddock-to-plate: Steven Castle on the farm with cattle.

MARKET MADE

IN an effort to expand and better manage its “infantry ... so you’re not stuck with a lot of the lesser cuts of the animals”, Koallah Farms bought a butchery in Melbourne’s Mt Waverley three years ago. A year later, it opened a new store in Rosanna. Operated under the Simple Free Range, the shops sell beef from the Castle farm as well as lamb, pork and chicken — “as much as we can we get straight from the producer”.

Steven said while there was a portion of the consumer market still heavily focused on price, “a large percentage is becoming more educated about where their produce comes from”.

“It’s not so much about saying it’s a better quality of produce, it’s more about being transparent about where it comes from and how it is produced,” he said.

He said the butcheries had provided “a learning curve” for the Castles as producers.

“Most butchers would say it’s very difficult to increase the number of people that want to come into a butcher shop ­because it is a very conscious effort to go and buy your meat and then go and buy your ­vegies from your fruit and vegie person,” he said. “And while we’d all like to say that we make that commitment, it’s very hard to get past the convenience of the supermarkets.

“People, particularly the younger generation, really want to their heads around food in light of television shows all over the place centred on quality food.”

IN FOR THE KILL

THE Castles run one of Australia’s only on-farm abattoirs. The planning process took about 12 months before the ­facility opened in November. They received a $100,000 grant from the State Government, which was milestone based with payments on construction, on completion and for the number of people ­employed.

The plant was bought from New Zealand, transported to the farm and rebuilt over eight months. The Castles did most of the construction (Max is a builder). Steven said as long as you were “asking the right questions and willing to listen to the guidelines” the process had been drama free.

Koallah Farm processes about six to cattle and 30 lambs a week through the abattoir to supply its butcheries and home-delivery, with service kills accounting for the majority of business.

The facility allows for the slaughter, boning and packaging of meat, which is usually shipped immediately. Steven estimates about five tonnes is processed through abattoir per week. It employs up to eight staff, including a full-time quality assurance ­officer.

“We’re not at the stage where cattle can walk straight into the abattoir, but that’s something that is feasible.”

QUALITY RULES

STEVEN said the concept of abattoir was more about control than cost saving.

He said the meat-processing industry was so competitive and efficient, there was little doubt “we could do it cheaper by going through a (larger) processor”.

“But it’s hard for them to be flexible when they are so much based on efficiencies and throughput,” he said. “A big kill for us might be 10 cattle in a day — they all might have to be killed slightly different to meet the customer’s need, they might be all cut up for the customer’s need. It’s about all having that flexibility.”

Steven said plenty of mistakes had been made along the way “and we’re still making them, but hopefully we’re learning from them”.

“We’re pretty conscious we want to grow slowly. We understand we need to operate in a niche, we’re not looking at doing huge number of animals or anything like that,” Steven said.

“We want to continue building our own brand while helping other people build theirs.”