We love bringing people together and watching them talk, learn, and find how much they have in common. More bringing people together would solve a lot of the world’s problems.

Sadly world peace is beyond us, so we settle for regularly taking outback Australian farmers around the world to talk to the people who buy their beef.  We think it’s important for farmers to understand what customers want from their food, and we know consumers understand our grassfed organic beef is authentic when they meet real farmers from vast organic farms in outback Australia.

In January we had the privilege of taking Wyandra (850 kilometres west of Brisbane, population 116) graziers Nikki and Rupert Schmidt to California to meet our valued retailers, cook organic beef samples for hordes of shoppers, and see where OBE Organic’s beef is sold.

Rupert and Nikki have worked hard to buy their first property and take it from conventional to organic, and now they have just moved to a second farm where they’re planning to repeat the process.  So they know lots about organic cattle.

We asked Nikki and Rupert what else they learnt on this trip.

THE ORGANIC STAMP IS VALUABLE.  “Organic certification involves a lot of paperwork and sometimes we wonder if it’s really important.  In these stores we saw the USDA organic logo everywhere – it really drove home how essential it is for us to be able to compete here.”

GRASSFED = GOOD.  GRASSFED + ORGANIC = BEST. “Every meat manager said demand for grassfed beef is growing quickly, and lots of customers were aware of the health benefits of lean grassfed beef. Having 100% grassfed beef that’s also organic is the icing on the cake, because it’s guaranteed free of chemicals, added hormones, antibiotics and GMOs.  That really is important.”

A GREAT PRODUCT WINS.  “Being organic and grassfed gets OBE Organic in the door, but having the best product keeps us there.  The importance of consistency kept coming up, with meat buyers telling us they have used other organic beef suppliers before but OBE Organic is so much better for consistency of tenderness, flavour and appeal.  If a consumer has a bad experience, they don’t come back.”

SELLING BEEF IS HARD. “I’ve never seen what happens to the cattle after we put them on the truck.  When you’re standing here on the other side of the world you can understand the complexity of selling beef.”

“This has been a fantastic trip, and it’s opened our eyes to things like the importance of keeping integrity in our organic systems and doing everything we can in our herd management to grow beef that tastes consistently outstanding.”

“We’re grateful to OBE Organic to give regular people like us the opportunity to do a market visit. We can’t think of any other company that would do the same, but OBE Organic is farmer-owned and does such a good job of looking after farmers.”

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