Tasmania’s best MSA producer awarded
22 September 2017
North West Tasmanian beef producer Katrina Simpson has won the 2017 MSA Excellence in Eating Quality Most Outstanding Beef Producer award for the State, presented at Ulverstone last night.
The Awards recognise producers who have achieved outstanding compliance rates to MSA specifications, as well as high eating quality, as represented by MSA Index results for beef carcases graded during the 2015-16 and 2016-17 financial years.
At her property at Wynyard, Mrs Simpson produces grassfed Angus and Hereford steers which go into Greenham’s Cape Grim Beef brand. (Click here for more details about Katrina’s operations)
Stan and Gwenyth Elphinstone, Stowport, won the inaugural MSA Excellence in Eating Quality Progress Award for Tasmania, for showing the greatest improvement in their MSA results since the 2014-15 financial year. The Elphinstones produce grassfed Angus/Charolais-cross cattle.
The MSA Most Outstanding Beef Producer award was open to producers that used any production system to achieve MSA eligible cattle
MSA Program Manager Sarah Strachan said the awards recognised the outstanding commitment by the producers for producing cattle that consistently achieved exceptional compliance rates to MSA’s strict specifications.
“To help with continuously improving eating quality, MSA-registered producers are provided with ongoing feedback on their livestock, accessible through myMSA, which now offers producers the ability to benchmark their performance against other producers in the state as well. These producers are showing they are taking notice of that information to achieve results,” Ms Strachan said.
“Katrina Simpson won the title of Most Outstanding Beef Producer from a field comprising 2,100 registered producers in Tasmania who consigned grassfed cattle during 2015-17.
“During 2015-17, 62% of the cattle processed in Tasmania were MSA graded.
“Throughout Australia, more than 14,000 producers consigned almost 5.9 million cattle to the MSA program during 2015-17.”
To be eligible for the awards, a producer’s annual MSA-graded volume had to be equal to or above the average volume consigned for the State in which they were produced.
Each producer that met the eligibility criteria received a score out of 100 weighted on two factors - the compliance to MSA minimum requirements, and eating quality performance as determined by the MSA Index for cattle consigned to MSA in 2015-16 and 2016-17 financial years.
The Awards aim to raise awareness of best management practice from producers who consistently deliver high eating quality beef in their state, ultimately for the benefit of consumers and for the profitability of the industry.
The Tasmanian awards are the third of the MSA Excellence in Eating Quality Awards to be held throughout Australia and are being staged in conjunction with the ‘What Makes the Perfect MSA Index’ producer forums in each state.
MSA was developed by the Australian red meat industry to improve beef eating quality consistency. The system is based on over 700,000 consumer taste tests by over 100,000 consumers from nine countries and takes into account all factors that affect the eating quality from the paddock to the plate.
To find out more information about the MSA Program visit: https://www.mla.com.au/msa
MSA producers can access their carcase feedback at www.mymsa.com.au
