A Current Affair is often used as not much more than cheap advertising space tarted up as 'infotainment'. The whole free-range direct selling thing is a marketing tool. Very similar to other marketing tools like 'buy Australian' or many other 'organic' products that people want to sell. They try and make a moral case for you choosing their product over the competition, regardless of cost. In this case supermarkets are a convenient whipping boy.
It's nothing to froth at the mouth over, it's just marketing.

Yeah, I was picking on your maths but only because you seemed so certain not long ago that you could understand a calculation for the probability of life and then just demonstrated that you couldn't get a simple percentage correct. C'est la vie.

Polycarp ,

As a cattleman I must congratulate the Gippsland Lean Beef outfit. The product looks good and is reasonably priced .

If it's too dear the market will sort them out .

C J Morgan , Although some of us appear to eat too much meat ,I suggest health problems, such as not enough exercise, are a far bigger concern for all ages .

If you are worried about the environment, as hard as cattle can be on certain native plants ,organic open forest or even straight native grassland grazing will support a hell of a lot more wildlife of all classes, than a GM canola crop or irrigated maize surrounded by a haze of chemicals .

It is interesting to see General Motors is now to go ethanol fuelled .This will be a huge environmental problem .

Look out cattle and sheep and there goes your native grasslands/forest paddock out the back that grandpa kept unplowed .

Good beef will always be worth more money .

polycarp,
Believe me there is no such thing as direct from farm. All meat to be sold has to be killed at a licenced abattoir. This means the animal must be transported there and the carcase then taken to a shop or cutting up/ packing premises.

I hope the venture succeeds for them but I have seen butchers go into farming and farmers go into butchers, with the object of making more profit but it does not always work.

The reasons for this are many, but mainly a farm just cannot provide all the requirements that a butcher will require and a butcher will be required to buy in other cuts of meat his customers will request.

I once managed a farm for a butcher and he had to buy in extra rumps and loins from wholesalers or waste a lot of carcases due to the proportion of lower grade meat in each carcase. I can also recall him bringing me whole lambs necks for dog feed because he could not sell them all. So while the theory sounds good, it is not that easy.

What about his requirements of pork and other meats? Will his customers just come to him for beef and lamb?

People are now paying a lot of money for 'free range' eggs and it was recently revealed that the only difference was that 'free range' meant that there were 14 birds per square metre, instead of 18 psm for ordinary eggs.

People like to feel good and marketers do their best to make them feel good.

Richie 10
The expected average yeild is about 67% once the fat and bones have been removed. Therefore your net price now is more like $6.00 per kilo.

To put the record straight on lamb yabby, I only sell 1st grade tasmanian lamb which I buy for $5.20 per kilo whole. They weigh an average of 22 kilos so they cost me $114.40. I don't know where your butcher gets his $350 from!

I sell the very best and charge accordingly. We have the best meat, the friendliest service and I am proud to say that I am the dearest butcher in town As I say, most butchers offer you 'meat specials' whereas I offer 'special meats'.

Rump or T.bone $27/kg, Lamb loin $19, rib fillet $39, mince $14, pork loin $13 and guess what, business is booming.

Just remember, just because you paid top dollar for your vegies, if the meat is no good then the meal is ruined.

The dearest meat you can buy is the meat you can't eat!

Now I'm rambling...sorry!

*They weigh an average of 22 kilos so they cost me $114.40. I don't know where your butcher gets his $350 from!*

You misunderstood the point Rehctub, or perhaps I never made it
clear enough. That is what he tries to sell a lamb for, when
he adds it all up, to cover his costs, margins etc. The actual meat
is only a small part of that. As you know, various cuts can
be value added in various ways. I have yet to see a butcher
waste too much. That is why they sell sausages :)

Dear People...

Specially those who have contributed some facts and figures from their own experience. Rechtub and Richie10 etc... great stuff.

I think this is a clear example of how we can ALL become so much better informed about important issues..when people simply contribute what they know...and don't attack others credibility for the sake of it.

Secular Bishop Pericles and his Deaconess CJ come to mind :)

Well done guys.

My main point was the apparent misinformation that the farmers were engaging in by saying the markup from the 'axis of evil' Supermarkets was so high...and then telling us "they" the "Allies of goodness" (Farmers/Gippsland meats) were going to save us so much.

I don't doubt that the market will sort them out ...if they are overpriced for the target market.. they'll go broke. or reduce their prices.

MY OTHER POINT.... which I was trying to bring out, and as illustrated by Richie10's post... the actual cost/kg for good meat 'can' be very low .. down to $4.00ish a kg..and we are speaking of eye fillet here as well as "shin"/gravy beef I'd say.

HINT.. given that there are huge savings to be made by some cooperative effort... groups of us could band together and approach willing farmers and organize how much of a beast we can accomodate in our freezer, and offer him (the farmer) a much better price than he would get at the saleyards, and all live lest expensively.