Quality Meat Scotland in Scotch Beef sales message

SCOTLAND’S red meat promotion body, Quality Meat Scotland (QMS) took Scotch Beef right to the city centre in London, yesterday but the selling message was not just about the top quality expensive cuts, it was also about maximising every single cut from the carcase.

In the wake of the horsemeat scare, QMS chairman Jim McLaren hammered out the benefits of the short supply chain and the known provenance of Scotch Beef to the Princess Royal, who had a decade ago launched the Scotch Beef Club for top restaurants using beef from Scotland.

Included among the invited guests were a number of chefs from some of the top eating places in the capital.

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And if some of the potential buyers were only thinking of the top cuts of beef, McLaren said that the message was all about the full utilisation of the animal. “Nowadays, it is important to make the most of every single cut that comes from a carcase,” he said.

To prove that point, noted meat consultant Viv Harvey, demonstrated butchery techniques on some of the less well-known cuts, transforming featherblade meat from the carcase shoulder into Flat Iron steaks. He also demonstrated how to maximise the D rump meat from the top of the leg by cutting it into quality steak meat.

The beef for this high-powered sales gathering came from Scotch Beef farmer of the year Robert Neill, of Upper Nisbet, Jedburgh, and he and his wife Jacqueline were on hand to explain their production system.

They keep some 300 Limousin cross Friesian or three quarter Limousin cows on the 1,000 acre unit with the progeny kept to 15 to 20 months and being either fed on grass or on home-grown cereals.

Upper Nisbet cattle are sent 52 weeks in the year to the local auction market as the Neills believe the regular supply of quality stock to local butchers, such as Louise Forsyth of Forsyth of Peebles, is essential to the success of their business.

Robert Neill is currently mid way through a Nuffield scholarship studying the electronic identification (EID) of cattle. His main trip abroad in the coming months will take him to Australia where cattle EID has been in operation for more than a decade.

He “strongly believes” in the technology as he has been using EID on his own cattle since 2007. He called it an essential management tool as it offered benefits in recording information on weights, breeding and disease control.