Prestigious beef award up for grabs

Prestigious beef award up for grabs

The highly sought-after title of most tender and tasty steak is up for grabs as entries open for the 2016 Beef + Lamb New Zealand Steak of Origin Competition.
This marks the fourteenth year beef farmers, retailers and wholesalers are invited to enter one of the most anticipated and well-known awards on the beef farmer calendar.

The prestigious award was taken out last year by father and son duo, Forbes and Angus Cameron, who were up against more than 300 entrants.

Beef + Lamb New Zealand CEO, Dr Scott Champion, says the competition is a great celebration of excellence.

“The Steak of Origin competition is a great way to showcase what farmers do best with a focus on quality and consistency”, says Champion.

All New Zealand beef farmers who breed commercial stock can enter into the Best of Breed category with the Best of Brand class open to meat retailers, wholesalers and foodservice suppliers.

All competition sirloins are aged for three weeks before undergoing initial testing at Carne Technologies in Cambridge. The steaks are tested for tenderness and quality, including tests for pH, marbling and % cooking loss. These results determine the semi-finalists which will then be taste tested by a panel of experienced judges who choose the top 20.

The Grand Final will be held in Palmerston North on 18 May where top chefs perform one last taste test to ascertain who will be named the 2016 Grand Champion.

Entries close February 19. For an entry form, farmers, retailers, wholesalers and foodservice suppliers can visit beeflambnz.co.nz or call 0800 733 466.

The competition is supported by Zoetis and processing plants across the country. These include: AFFCO Moerewa, Alliance Group Ltd, ANZCO Riverlands, Ashburton Meat Processors, Auckland Meat Processors/Wilson Hellaby, Cabernet Foods, CMP Kokiri, Land Meat NZ, Lean Meats, Progressive Meats, Silver Fern Farms and Taylor Preston.

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