Back on the high horse

[Rob R]

Taste Tradition did Dexter veal, I seem to recall, but it isn't on their website any longer.

The biggest issue that I've experienced when buying steers to rear on/finish has been the unreliability of supply, they tend to come in ones & twos, often simultaneously, but at opposite ends of the country. That's one advantage of them all coming down to York, for me. Then there is the unreliability of competition - last Spring I couldn't get any steers because there were so many buyers and a lot of stock was not forward, whereas come the Autumn sale, there was more than I had space/budget for. Regarding budgets, there is also little consistency in expectations of price - a finisher can only buy stock at a fair price but there are steers out there with unrealistic prices. I don't know who ends up buying them but some steers are advertised at weaning for almost as much as a finished animal. Finally, not all Dexter breeders are in it for the long haul, so there isn't always consistency of supply from one year to the next. Added into that, I also breed my own, so I never know if I'll have a glut of breeding or feeding stock. All this combined inconsistency would make setting up a finishing unit so difficult to plan and maintain.

I don't know if anyone here is familiar with Adam Quinney - a front runner for the NFU presidency, he also runs a beef finishing unit in Warwickshire, in which the owner of the animals retains ownership & the finisher is paid on a per day basis (there was an article about it in either the FG or FW a few weeks ago). It certainly looks an interesting way to do it, and there is information exchange back to the producer as to performance. Of course in his case batches are taken in in sufficienct numbers that they don't need to be mixed, which is always going to be an issue with small groups of Dexters.

[Saffy]

I expect rose veal would be too expensive to kill and cut up for the size but as I said in my other post a local posh nosh place was very keen to try it and would at a push of had the whole beast, not that they are very big!!! It may be worth feeling out local top end eateries, see if they fancy trying something slightly unusual, depends just how many steers you need to sell straight off the cow and costs of kill and cut up but many good places will want to cut it themselves so it is probably only kill costs, just cut in half, or maybe quarters....worth a try?!

Stephanie

[Rob R]

The more I think about it, the more Dexter veal fits the bill - calving in late winter/early spring, finished straight from the cow so no overwintering costs and less carcass weight so significantly fewer kgs of Dexter beef flooding the market. The only problem is that I can imagine is that not many people who aren't prepared to kill heifers would go for killing calves, so unlikely to have much of an effect on the bigger picture (not that I'd want to do it myself, either).

[domsmith]

I have been finishing dangus stirks straight off the cows for the last year. so they are 8-9months and weighing in around 150kg dead. they have been beautiful for the restaurants. i charge my customer £500 for the calf and £400 for killing butchering, packaging and delivery. And thats primals no slicing and dicing. it seems to pay the bills!

the pure dexter is too small for veal imo. cuts too small.

big demand for veal from resturants. but i have given up with now, sold all the cows but 12 of my favourites never will i pick up my butchers knives gain!

d

[Rob R]

In my experience restaurants want the moon on a stick for half the price.

[beechhay]

I can't say that I am very experienced at this, nor am I good at the to & fro discussions with what we 'should' do to achieve this or that; it always strikes me that each farm or breeder does whatever suits them, however I can put our case forward as rose veal has come up.

For three years now, we have calved in the spring and then with short legged calves at about 6 months of age we have killed, had butchered and sold boxes of rose veal or young beef.

No over-wintering costs, no cows with calves in the winter(so they out-winter), minimal input, with no feed at all for the butchered calves and only occasional hay for the cows.

The calves kill with about 75kg of marketable meat which achieves about £500. Costs for killing and butchering are low as these are very small and so discounted from a full sized animal; less than £100 per animal. We keep two or three of the best heifers and kill the rest.

I know my neighbour keeps his commercial continentals for 30 months, feeds tonnes of feed through two winters and makes less margin than we do.

It works very well for us, when it ceases to be profitable, we will change to a different system.

[Rob R]

I know my neighbour keeps his commercial continentals for 30 months, feeds tonnes of feed through two winters and makes less margin than we do.

It works very well for us, when it ceases to be profitable, we will change to a different system.

I think that was one of the most valuable posts made on this thread.

With regards to neighbours, big cattle and margins, we've had the same experience, with the neighbour scoffing at the size of our cows, until we pointed out that we keep three Dexters for every one of his pedigree Limousins, at which point he shut up.

[Louisa Gidney]

I've double suckled Jersey bull calves for veal at 4 and 6 months old and I've put plenty of Dexters in the freezer at less than a year old. Still got to find customers for it and selling is not my scene. Much of the feedback I received was that it was too bland.
The other problem is getting them fit in time. Although I can't quantify it, there has been variation between dams, possibly butterfat % rather than total milk production. I did get one bull away at 9 months, whose meat in size, colour & flavour would have passed as a much more mature beast.
By coincidence, the archaeological site I'm working on had a similar strategy of eating weaned calves over 6 months old, from the teeth.

[Rob R]

Much of the feedback I received was that it was too bland.

We had some of the Taste Tradition veal at a dinner once, and that is exactly how I would describe it - not quite sure how it won a taste award, as I could hardly taste it at all, but then I don't like young lamb for that reason, neither.

[Saffy]

I wonder what age lamb and veal/beef gets its flavour?

I can't remember eating really young lamb, I haven't for such a long time. However I did do a taste test on different ages of lamb once, i would like to do it on beef sometime. I had two lambs one 5 months one a year and 5 months from same ewe and ram. Killed at the same time, sadly very little difference in carcass size when they came back...not as much as I had expected at all! I cooked a leg from each and a shoulder from each and invited a bunch of farming friends....to our shock none of us could tell the difference. Now I know that wasn't a young lamb, I was keeping Greyface Dartmoor and they are quite slow to grow but still I thought there would be big flavour and texture difference especially with the two on the plate at the same time.

Stephanie

[Kelvin and Lottie James]

We had a farmer at a show scoff about our Dexters, this was about ten years ago. He was not amused when I told him we get the same subsidy for our bull calves as he gets for his, but we can keep thre of four to his one charolais. We have a friend with charolais who will not eat his own beef, but loves our beef, saying something for continentals????
Lottie,
Sedgefen Dexters

[Louisa Gidney]

Commercial farmers not eating their own meat is nothing new, Coke of Norfolk had Norfolk wethers on his table but was breeding New Leicester sheep for sale. It goes back to my point of commoditisation. Coke, Charolais men etc are producing a commodity in bulk for a largely undiscerning urban market, hence the horse meat scandal. Any small scale holding is producing what money cannot buy. This is the rock and hardplace that any attempt to commercialise beef production from Dexters founders upon.

[Rob R]

Re: 'commercial' farmers scoffing - it's not always the case. We went to see a fairly local farmer who we didn't know to take a look at his Roundhouse cattle building. When he asked what cattle we keep we replied, which, with hindsight, must have sounded quite apologetically, and he said 'there's nothing wrong with Dexters'.

Any small scale holding is producing what money cannot buy. This is the rock and hardplace that any attempt to commercialise beef production from Dexters founders upon.

I'm not sure it is, or should be, a rock & a hardplace, or if it is, not one that relates to Dexters rather than a continental. There are certain pointers you can take from commodity-style farming that'll improve the viability of producing Dexters without compromising quality, which avoids having to have high prices to make it work. This usually involves some collaboration with suppliers, customers and/or other producers to get the most out of fixed assets or bulk purchases. Just keeping an eye on what you are spending and doing some form of accounting/cost-benefit analysis will help greatly, too, particularly if it's done before making the purchases/spending the time. Don't get me wrong, it's easy not to do it, but it really does pay to have realistic budgets, even if they're on the back of an envelope or in the back of your head. I don't think the majority of people who buy Dexters do this at all, they just buy in the hope that they'll repay the investment. It doesn't even have to involve major purchases either, a simple one I often see involves planning of layouts and simple things such as hosepipes or the swinging of a gate to make feeding/watering quicker and easier.

[Jac]

The calves kill with about 75kg of marketable meat which achieves about £500. It works very well for us, when it ceases to be profitable, we will change to a different system.

£6.66 a kilo for veal?

http://www.midshiresroseveal.co.uk/

[beechhay]

My point exactly! Could I charge more, probably; do I need to, definitely not; would I make more money, possibly not if sales went down. As I said in my initial comment, every farm is different and one cannot possibly know the margins made by each.

The people on the website quoted almost certainly have huge overheads and they produce purpose-made feed for their calves which are raised intensively and then their profit is probably less than ours.

I am confident that rearing our calves on cows at grass with no feed is more profitable at £6.66 per kg, than the site mentioned. To point at the higher retail prices on their website as compared with ours is to compare turnover, not profit.

We never buy a kg of feed; the calves are completely grass and milk reared. The cows are weaned before the winter and so can be out-wintered with no feed and only rarely hay.
Our meat is sold in boxes and because it is not overly expensive, our customers can eat it without concern over the cost; therefore they eat it more rapidly and come back more regularly. I don’t have to store unwanted meat or keep stock. I don’t have to advertise as our customers are pleased with the product and tell their friends.

I have an outlet for inferior Dexters (not inferior carcass!)

In the thread there is mention of not keeping inferior breeding stock, but then others want higher prices for the meat sold from this stock. Somewhere one has to find a system that suits ones needs.

My neighbour makes less than £100 per animal, because of high input costs namely: purchase a store at £700, feed a tonne per winter at £300 per tonne, housing hay, straw, machinery. On the other hand, the supermarkets are selling meat at less than they are paying the abattoirs, as loss leaders. Both are doing what they want to do.

I am confident that I will never become rich selling my Dexters, but I am sure that I make a very good profit from them and it is profit that is reality. Headline prices from internet sites or tv adverts do not show the amount made by the vendor. The website can ask for far higher prices than ours, but they may not sell much! On the other hand, as I get more customers, I can always creep my prices up!

The taste and texture of the meat is another discussion point. Again I am a consumer not an expert, but I have eaten American prime-rib, South African fillet and UK roasts. It is my opinion that if you want a good starting point for a piece of meat you should find a well-kept, well-handled, well-bred piece of meat. If it is old, it may have more texture and flavour, on the other hand it may be tough and strong – extremes of the same scale?

These days even in the UK many people marinade, or have sauces or jus! Rarely do we eat a chunk of meat without a flavour added, even if that be horseradish. Feedback on our meat has been that it has been the most tender meat they have ever eaten; they have almost certainly cooked it in a sauce or with something else. I can cope with a customer reporting it was bland without a gravy; if they said it was tough I would be mortified.

Finally our customers are happy that these animals are not being fed commercial feeds with unknown contents and that they have not had wormers or antibiotic injections and that we take them directly after a TB test so that they are confident that they are not TB reactors. A satisfied producer and happy customers – my main goal in life!

We have been asked if we could source enough Dexter beef to supply a burger chain in London such is the popularity of our product, I haven’t taken that up yet!