i think fundamentally our business strategy is all about
having superb facilities in which our cattle can live and also that our staff can operate in
but it's all targeted at making sure that we're optimizing cattle performance.
Smithfield feedlot was started in 1986 so 35 years ago and it grew organically over that
period of time. The business then has grown to a certain size that allowed a lot of the other
family members to then join it and i was the last one to join the business only in 2014. But it was
not long after that that we then decided to expand our our lot feeding enterprise and that resulted
in us buying Sapphire feedlot and the real reason we bought uh the feedlot down here is
that Smithfield feedlot is is up in South Burnett, it's north of the tick line so we can draw cattle
from central Queensland and further north and then down here at Goondiwindi it allows us to attract
cattle from southern markets but it's also very much in the middle of the grain belt strategically
it made a lot of sense for us to buy a second feedlot and for it to be located down here.
Now we're not responsible for the genetics of the animals that come into the feedlot but we are
very much interested in now in our customers supplying cattle that have excellent genetics, but
then once they come to the feedlot it's our job to make sure that they're that they're happy and
healthy obviously an unhealthy animal is not going to eat as much and therefore will not perform
so that's where the focus on animal welfare and and their health plays a significant part in it.
And then it's also our discipline in the milling from a milling perspective so it's making sure
that every ration that's produced is uh exactly in accordance with the proportions that are required
and that the commodities that go into our rations are as good as they possibly can be because at the
end of the day it's all down to nutrition and then having a healthy animal in good facilities
that's capable to perform to its potential. You know Sapphire's a pretty impressive facility
we didn't always start off that way and our number one focus even though we're a cattle company
we put a huge amount of time and energy and effort into the feed that we produce
so operational excellence with the feed that we produce we incorporated steam flaking
into Smithfield in 2001 and you know that's probably i believe one of the biggest single
I guess best things that we ever did from a cattle company perspective but actually you could
probably say we're more feed manufacturing business than a cattle company because
that's absolutely where our focus goes to make sure that every single kilogram of feed that we
produce is generating the most kilograms of of quality grain-fed beef that we can possibly can.
In order to be in a business for 99 years you have to actually be able to display some level
of sustainability and we like to think within transitioning from each generation
we've left or given the land over in a in a better better condition than the previous
generation had it so that's obviously our goal as a family we've got the fourth generation coming
through we want to be able to hand on our hearts say to our kids that the practices that we've done
our business ethics and morals and the values that we uphold will hold the next generation in good
stead moving forward. Both feedlots are accredited under the National Feedlot Accreditation Scheme so
that's also commonly known as NFAS and underneath that accreditation scheme is a whole lot of
environmental welfare guidelines and environmental guidelines and a whole set of systems that we have
to follow in order to make sure we uphold the highest standard of care for these animals that
we have at both feedlots. And as a company we've really tried to uh invest heavily in
making sure that our infrastructure is best practiced so at Sapphire here and at Smithfield we
have 100 shaded pens so every single animal across both sites so that's up to 40 000 cattle every day
can seek shelter. We've made sure that our processing facilities state of the art so at
sapphire here we've built a new hospital set of yards designed under the Temple Grandin
style of low stress cattle handling and we're also building a new scan out facility. We've also
built another one at Smithfield so fully automated and verified exit so every single animal leaving
both feedlots will be able to be verified upon exit. The other thing we've done is we've got
bitumen roads which is obviously helps towards dust suppression at Sapphire and as a family
we really identified that animal welfare was just such a critical aspect of what we do we've got all
of these animals in our care as a family we then 12 months ago decided that let's just stop talking
about it and actually make it a reality that we'll employ a full-time animal welfare officer and
that's where Sally she was on our trainee manager program for a couple of years and we decided that
with Sally's background and experience having grown up around cattle she was very very familiar
with cattle behaviors and how animals would like to be treated. And I think that's a cultural
change that's a it's a shift from I'm just coming today to do my job it's actually about we're
all in this together and we're all about caring for the 40,000 cattle that we have in our care.
We're I guess just starting off on the regenerative journey
we've been doing manure applications on our farming country and pastures for
you know many years now. We've just started uh we've done a six-way photo crop mix up in
the Burnet there that we've just started grazing cattle so I guess that multi-species types mix is
is is very good for the soil biology gives the cattle diversity in in the grazing.
As a family we have sustainability as one of our one of our core values decision that we
have made is to try to use renewable energy as much as we can so we constructed that solar farm
a couple of years ago it's a 100 kilowatt solar array which produces about at the moment
now only produces about 35 to 40 percent of our requirements on a daily basis so
we plan to make that particular solar array two and a half times its size before we get a chance
to do that we're putting a 100 kilowatt solar array into Smithfield feedlot to
to try to lower the footprint of that particular facility but our commitment to renewable energy
is definitely there solar energy seems to be the most practical way for us to
generate renewable energy. And of course none of this would be here unless we employ amazing people
and we've got amazing staff they've been with us for you know some over two decades so
they're committed as much as we are about caring for these cattle.
you