FSR May 2023

TRENDING ON THE MENU // Grass-Fed Beef

1,200 12-ounce Gibsons Grass-fed Aus tralian Ribeye steaks. By February 2023, the restaurant was selling 2,000 of them. Where is this trend coming from? Huebschmann believes grass-fed beef’s growth is due to both an appetite for something healthier, as well as the ongo ing consumer quest to find eco-friendly menu items—the Association’s afore

Kindler, North America business devel opment manager with Aussie Beef & Lamb. “There are fantastic things hap pening on Australian farms to improve soil health and biodiversity that we’re keen to share. We encourage readers to learn about this through the Aussie Meat Academy, our resource for all things Aus tralian red meat.”

mals are fed, treated, and transported. For these reasons, specifically menu ing Australian grass-fed beef can create value to those consumers who are look ing for proteins that are more sustain able and eco friendly. Grass-fed beef can also be a sustainable alternative to the processed plant-based items that have long been touted as the future yet have not achieved mass adoption. “I think the environmentally con scious person is becoming more cautious of things that are produced in a labora tory,” Huebschmann says. “My personal preference is to take something that’s inherently great tasting, raised prop erly—whether it’s a plant or an animal raised in a field—without additives, hor mones, or antibiotics, and to know you’re getting something better for the planet and healthier for yourself.” Besides the fact that Australian grass fed beef is held to a high standard, Hueb schmann strongly believes Australian grass-fed beef simply tastes better than its domestic counterpart. “When we were sampling grass-fed beef, we found that the domestic stuff has this funky metallic aftertaste,” Huebschmann says. “It wasn’t the flavor profile that we wanted. The reason we went with Aus tralian is that the flavor is so clean. It also helped that the animals were being raised by those Australian standards— everything about it felt like something we wanted to be a part of and brand.” And brand it Gibsons Restaurant Group did. Huebschmann and his team created Gibsons Grass-fed Australian, an in-house brand complete with its own boxes that arrive at each Gibsons Restaurant Group concept that features the products on its menu. Huebschmann reports that every cut of Gibsons Grass fed Australian Beef has shown at least 25 percent growth over the past three years. “It will be interesting to watch this whole profession and the growth of this segment of the beef market,” Hueb schmann says. “I really think demand for grass-fed beef out of Australia—if they continue to put out a great product that’s raised responsibly—is only going to con tinue to grow on our menu and others.”

GRASS-FED BEEF IS A GREAT OPTION FOR HEALTH CONSCIOUS DINERS.

AUSSIE BEEF & LAMB

mentioned survey found that over half of fine-dining establishments will be add ing eco-friendly menu items in order to meet demand. The perception of grass-fed beef as more sustainable and eco-friendly is based in fact. Australian grass-fed beef, for example, is created in a country that’s on target for its meat industry to be carbon neutral by 2030. As part of that progress, Aussie farmers have more than halved greenhouse gas emissions since 2005 and reduced water use by 68 percent over the past 30 years. “Our industry has already made great progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and water use,” says Sabina

There’s also a quality component— sustainability and healthy bona fides don’t mean much without a consistent, delicious beef experience on the plate. Australia’s USDA-equivalent grading sys tem, Meat Standards Australia (msa), predicts meat’s eating quality based on 14 different criteria. The scale was devel oped based on over 170,000 consumer taste tests and 1.3 million red meat sam ples. MSA grading provides eating-qual ity certainty for grass-fed beef buyers, who often can’t find USDA-graded prod uct. The system takes into consideration how closely Australian ranchers follow strict guidelines pertaining to the well being of livestock, including how the ani

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