IN THE midst of Beef Week, showcasing the state's top cattle and genetics, it is ironically cheap meat that has stolen the spotlight.
Industry trends outlined in the latest Australian Cattle Industry Projections, from Meat and Livestock Australia, confirm, in rather depressing detail, how consumers globally are increasingly favouring cheap meat over primal cuts.
A historical comparison of prices, using export sales to Japan in US cents-per-pound terms to remove the impact of the dollar, show that 90 chemical lean grinding beef values have increased by 47 per cent in the past three years, compared with just 29 per cent for the premium cut of chilled cube rolls.
A snapshot of the Japanese market last year, hailed as Australian beef's premium outlet, is typical of the trend which is happening on a global scale.
Frozen beef exports from Australia to Japan in 2011 increased by 2 per cent and reached a record high of nearly 204,000 tonnes shipped weight (most being grinding beef), MLA's projection document shows.
But exports of higher-value chilled beef to Japan fell by 11 per cent to a 20-year low of less than 140,000 tonnes.
The MLA report's author, Tim McRae, notes that consumer downgrading is having a significant impact on the Australian cattle industry.
"It has been the lower returns for premium beef cuts that have hurt both Australian exporter margins and processor returns last year. This has been a trend in the market since late 2008 and has been evident across most key importing markets not just Japan," he notes.
It makes you question whether the farmers who have spent all this money on beautifully bred beef weaner steers in the past month would have been better investing in cull store cows to fatten or a plain Friesian steer. They don't look so nice but fit readily into the grinding beef category.
I say it with slight tongue in cheek, as a considerable component of all slaughter cattle is trim that ends up as manufacturing beef.
What I'm trying to highlight is that the brightest outlook for the industry this year is grinding beef, as all the data suggests that the trend of consumers being price-conscious and eating to a budget is set to continue.
The latest figures out of the US are encouraging as they suggest America's shortfall of hamburger beef could be greater than forecast.
Early this week the US Department of Agriculture reported the US herd at 90.8 million head, the lowest January inventory of all cattle and calves since 1952.
The figures mark a 2.1 per cent decline in herd numbers compared to a year ago - much higher than the 1.5 to 1.7 per cent contraction tipped.
Already MLA has forecast that beef exports to the US will be a highlight of the Australian beef trade this year, with volumes expected to grow by 28 per cent off a low base. Latest herd figures suggest this outlook could be conservative.
The other potential benefit from a smaller US herd is less competition from American beef in key Asian markets such as Japan and Korea.
Before the latest US herd figures were announced, the USDA had forecast a 5 per cent drop in American beef production this year.
Mr McRae said this fall amounted to 560,000 tonnes less beef coming out of the US, which equates to more than one-quarter of Australia's annual production.
The other interesting news out of the US in recent weeks is a shift away from Lean Fine Textured beef by the big hamburger chains.
The product is used as cheap meat extender in hamburgers, and is made using sophisticated technology that allows meat fragments to be collected from carcass trim that would normally end up as waste or dog food, so it is claimed.
The US industry sees it different. But the product has attracted enough consumer backlash for the hamburger giants to dump it despite its low cost.
Our exports of grinding beef could benefit to the tune of thousands of tonnes.
