A vegetable grower and processor in East Gippsland introduced a beef component to the enterprise to value-add waste vegetables.
Bonaccord Ingram produces 22,000 tonnes of vegetables annually, off 3000 acres (1214 hectares) at Lindenow; 80 per cent of the produce is delivered into Sydney via the business' 48 trucks.
Challenged with disposing of off-cuts or any vegetables not meeting consumer demand led Bonaccord to invest in cattle.
"It was a way of utilising surplus," said Murray Ingram, one of the four brothers who own the business.
"At the quietest moment of the production cycle, that can amount to 15 cubic metres of waste; up to 100m3 daily in peak harvest time from January to May."
Steers are purchased at 200-250kg and their feed is a combination of grazing crops of oats, barley, millet and annual ryegrass, rolls of silage and lucerne hay and vegetable waste. All crops and lucerne are grown as part of the rotation for improving and resting paddocks between vegetable crops.
"The cattle can grow at up to 1.1kg per day, until they reach a weight of 540kg. About 350 steers were fattened this way last year," Mr Ingram said.
Steers were weighed regularly to achieve the specifications, ready for sale to Coles and processed by JBSwift in Brooklyn. A single investment has made a difference with achieving specified weights - an electronic scanning and weighing machine in the cattle race in the stockyards.
"When we had the stockyards being set up, the guy suggested we install the Ruddweigh weigh bars with Gallagher electronic animal scanner – the magic wand. It's made a huge difference. It’s labour saving," Mr Ingram said.
The scanner includes software that can be programmed to record traits of the cattle, as well as the date of weighing and weight.
“For record keeping, it’s incredibly labour saving,” he said. “I can take that wand back to the office, the information is downloaded in 10 minutes and I can identify particulars of each animal from its eartag.”
It was a way of utilising surplus
- Murray Ingram, Bonaccord Ingram, Lindenow
A spreadsheet of the information can analyse weight gains, temperament and animal health issues, among other traits. It has helped the enterprise to identify preferred breeders of store cattle.
“I can go to the store sale with the knowledge of whose cattle perform better in our environment,” Mr Ingram said.
