Stanbroke is celebrating a hat-trick of wins in the Darling Downs Best Beef Brand title.
Announced at the fifth annual Toowoomba and Surat Basin Enterprise (TSBE) Beef Battle, the Menegazzo family-owned pastoral company beat seven other grainfed beef brands including Rangers Valley, Stockyard Beef, JBS, Mort & Co, The Grove Premium Australian Wagyu, Nap Co and NH Foods to clinch the title.
Chris Woolhouse of Stanbroke – a vertically-integrated company operating large-scale properties in Queensland’s gulf country, backgrounding and feedlot operations in southern Queensland and a processing plant in the Lockyer Valley – said the result was “very, very exciting”.
“This is such a sensational competition and it is wonderful to win in terms of promoting a local business and building brand recognition,” he said.
“We were pretty nervous about whether we could take out the trifecta, but the win is testament to the hard work of all our staff.”
The best grainfed sirloin of eight of the region’s top beef producers was served to 400 lucky diners at the Toowoomba Turf Club, each of whom rated the meat in terms of flavour, tenderness, flavour intensity, juiciness and overall personal liking.
The diners’ votes – done via an app developed by iTrazo – comprised 50 per cent of the final score, with the balance constituting a vote by six industry experts.
TSBE Food Leaders Australia general manager Justin Heaven said the idea of the competition was to throw 50pc of the judging to a crowd to put the product to the “pub test”.
“We wanted to get people in a room tasting product and being part of the judging process,” he said.
“What you can get in a restaurant or a pub every weekend was what we wanted to showcase.”
Mr Heaven said the Beef Battle brings the industry together.
“They’re all very supportive of each other,” he said.
“The genuine camaraderie between the producers at the event was evident and TSBE is very proud to be involved.”
TSBE CEO Ali Davenport agreed.
“The Beef Battle is important to our region and provides an opportunity to showcase the amazing beef we have in the region,” she said.
“Our event is testament to our region’s stellar agriculture industry and the fantastic producers that operate within it.”
Meat and Livestock Australia executive chef Sam Burke oversaw the cooking of the steaks at the Beef Battle, along with Turf Club head chef Olaf Pfeiffer.
Mr Burke said the competition was a good chance to celebrate the important work of the beef industry in southern Queensland.
“The Darling Downs has really passionate producers and we know that 60pc of grainfed beef comes from the area, so it is quite an important part of the beef supply chain for domestic and export markets,” he said.
“The area has really good farming practices with shades over the feedlots and things like that, which I think needs to be celebrated.”
The competition was preceded by a cooking demonstration at the Toowoomba TAFE.
