Most would think that the export of chilled beef from Australia really took off with the development of the Japanese market in the 1970s.
Subscribe now for unlimited access to all our agricultural news
across the nation
or signup to continue reading
You would be right from the perspective of the shipment of vacuum packed beef primals in chilled seafreight containers. That technology was a game changer, especially in the Japanese market with the first full container as part of a commercial shipment leaving the Borthwicks plant in Brooklyn, Victoria in March 1970.
But in reality this was the second coming for chilled beef from Australia.
Most would not realise that a series of events in the 1930s led to Australia becoming a major exporter of chilled quarter beef before World War 2.
The story behind it is both fascinating and reflective of the vagaries of the export market that all export processing companies face, even today.
Until the 1930s Australia had only shipped frozen meat to Great Britain.
Chilled meat had become more attractive to British consumers as the technology improved.
Argentina had led that development and therefore the market. With a shorter transit time, Argentine chilled beef was clearly preferred in Britain over Australian frozen.
With the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, many countries started to erect barriers to trade.
This soon led to discussions over whether Britain should impose Imperial Preference in trade - that is that Britain should give preference to goods from British Commonwealth members like Australia over non-members like Argentina.
Agreement to Imperial Preference at a conference in Ottowa, Canada, in 1932 gave Australia increased access to Britain and for Argentina, the main supplier of chilled beef at the time, reduced access.
While the business was controlled by quotas, Australian quotas rose from 1932 by about the same amount each year that Argentina's fell.
The quotas generated a significant premium for chilled product prompting renewed interest in developing the technology in Australia.
Trials with chilled beef quarters had begun as early as 1909 in Brisbane but failed for a variety of reasons including processing standards, hygiene and cost.
With premiums now available in Britain after Imperial Preference was imposed, FJ Walker Ltd made the first successful commercial chilled beef shipment from Australia to Britain in 1932 from its plant in Aberdeen, NSW.
Borthwicks followed with shipments out of Moreton in Queensland and Portland in Victoria.
Some shipments were more successful than others. One shipment in 1934 had a transit time of just 34 days while other transit times were double this.
Lack of suitable shipping became a key factor as well as managing temperature variation during transit.
The Vesty Group from Britain, along with Swift and Co and Wilson Packing from the United States, all had substantial investments in the chilled beef business in Argentina at the time.
Declining South American access to Britain and increasing access for Australia under Imperial Preference encouraged investment in Australian processing assets.
All three foreign processing companies moved to invest in Australia in the mid 1930s, the most famous of which was the purchase by Lord Vesty of William Angliss & Sons in 1934.
The decline in shipments from South America under Imperial Preference also led to surplus shipping capacity.
The ships servicing Argentina were designed for the chilled quarter beef trade and therefore didn't suit the frozen trade out of Australia.
Vestys built five new "Empire" ships specifically for the new Australian business as part of its Blue Star Line. The first two were on the berth by 1935.
Australian chilled quarter beef shipments increased from nothing in 1931 to over 26,000 tonnes per annum in the late 1930s.
It was an amazing achievement.
The trade ceased during WW2 as most shipping was converted to the war effort.
It is a sad epitaph that Vesty alone saw the loss of 29 of its 42 Blue Star Line vessels during the war, some with all hands.
Lack of shipping halted chilled beef production out of Australia when the war finished.
It remained that way post WW2 until the chilled business was rekindled to Japan in the 1970s as vacuum packed primals rather than quarters and using the new seafreight container technology.
The first container ships had only arrived commercially in Australia in 1969.
China in perspective
It was good to see the first of the Australian meat processing plants suspended by China, having the suspensions lifted as the Chinese Government returns to reflecting the broader intent of the free trade agreement signed with Australia in 2015.
That agreement allowed for assessment of any technical issues with meat processing plants and their quick resolution.
These first three plants were the low hanging fruit; that is the easy ones who, during the depths of the pandemic, had self- reported cases of COVID and found themselves suspended for a couple of years.
A more important measure will be how quickly the remaining suspended plants are allowed to return to the Chinese market as well as those plants that have been waiting since 2017 to be listed for China.
The Joint Statement signed in March 2017 following the visit to Australia of China's Vice Premier Mr Li Keqiang, allowed for all plants registered for China for frozen meat, the opportunity to be registered for chilled as well.
It also included an agreement to expedite the listing of new plants for China originally audited by them back in 2015. None of this happened.
To put the current lifting of suspensions on Australian plants into perspective, China's General Administration of Customs, or GACC, recently added eleven beef establishments from the US as eligible to export to China.
This was after adding a further eighteen US beef plants in late October, the first since December of 2022.
