AUSTRALIA’S lamb industry has bred its way out of higher profits by following fashionable trends instead of what works best at the processing and retail end of the lamb chain, says Cowra meat processor, Chris Cummins.
The owner of Breakout River Meats, Cowra, Mr Cummins said the industry had gone too far in the large, lean, late maturing direction and as a result was losing potential profit at several levels.
However, it was possible to reverse the trend if breeders took the right genetic steps, he said.
Mr Cummins has been in the meat game for about 30 years, beginning with cattle, but quickly moving to sheep.
In the past 10 years he had noticed a wayward trend which was costing the industry – and very few people seemed to have realised this, he said.
* Extract from a full report in The Land, NSW, August 28 edition.