ENVIROMEAT, the Gippsland-based branded beef, has always been ahead of its time.
But now, new owners plan to have the Enviromeat branded beef and its secondary line - Gippsland Natural Beef - on more plates in restaurants around Victoria.
Prominent Gippsland producers Bill Bray, Bob Davies and Paul Crock bought the 10-year-old beef brand with serious environmental credentials earlier this month.
The trio have all supplied cattle to the environmentally conscious beef brand - where the beef is produced in line with an Environmental Management System, the beef is MSA graded and handled according to ISO14001 Environmental Quality Assurance - and didn't want to see the brand die.
"An enormous amount of work has been put into the brand and we didn't want to see it (go to waste)," Cattle Council Australia former president Mr Bray said.
The other beef producers agree.
"We all invested blood, sweat and tears to get this off the ground. There was no way we wanted to let it go," Mr Crock said.
Enviromeat has been on the menu at Federation Square restaurant Tjanabi in Melbourne for some time and the trio - backed by suppy from 30-40 beef producers - plan to target the restaurant and catering sector, as well as sustaining their presence in many quality butchers shops.
While Enviromeat has "made a profit every year", the Unit Trust, which has managed the brand, decided to sell their brands, Mr Bray said.
The new owners plan to crank up the supply chain.
"The issue is, we have the supply, we have to really get the demand going. And we will target companies that have an environmental (charter) and really want to use beef that is produced in an environmentally conscious way."
At present, 15-20 bodies are processed each week at the Warragul abattoirs Radfords, before being sent to various suppliers.
Mr Crock wants to increase this number dramatically to justify the added expense of producing the MSA-graded and EMS-certified beef.
"There is no shortage of good cattle around at present," Mr Bray said.
It won't be long before this dynamic partnership really gets moving.
"We want to look at our cost structure, and perhaps become third party audited," Mr Bray said.
