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118 Business View Australia - June 2015
to uphold the integrity of the Wagyu
brand and enhance its reputation.
The Australian Wagyu Association
has also tasked itself with maintain-
ing relations with government and
media and ensuring truth in labelling
for the Wagyu product in the market.
The members of the Association
include growers of Wagyu cattle, both
in Australia and overseas. Proces-
sors and downstream distributors
of Wagyu beef are also members.
Graham Truscott explains, “We have
got around about 350 members and
50 of those are overseas members
and we probably represent maybe
half the Wagyu breeders in Austra-
lia. Most of our breeders breed both
feedstock for bull production and are
also commercial breeders, because
the value of the carcasses of these
Wagyu cattle is so high that they fo-
cussed a lot more on commercial
production than they have on feed-
stock and genetics production.”
Genetics of Wagyu cattle
A critical function of the Associa-
tion is to identify the genetic traits
that give the Wagyu breed its su-
perior beef quality and then uti-
lise this knowledge to increase the
commercial value and success of
Wagyu beef. Clarifying the role of
genetics, Graham Truscott says,
“The key drivers for any breed are
the ability to be able to predict the
genetics and their performance,-
so that we can pick which ones are
the superior traits to use with this
particular breed. This had not been
done well until about two years ago.
We have been driving very hard into
genetic analysis and the fundamen-
tal claim to fame of Wagyu is its car-
cass quality particularly in terms of
the marbling of the breed. Therefore
over the last two-three years, we have
been taking end point carcasses in-
formation from abattoirs and feeding
that into our genetic analysis system
called Wagyu plan. We are develop-
ing estimated breeding values to be
able to predict the carcass weight,
the marbling capabilities of the car-
cass and the fineness of marbling.
We can very accurately pre-
dict the carcass that is going to
be delivered from the genetics.
That has been a key policy driv-
er – to be able to achieve that,
we need to understand where the
elite genetics are and people can
then breed from them and con-
tinue to genetically improve this
breed. Wagyu has got massive
upside potential in that area.
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