Search for ideal steak

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33230, 21 May 1973, Page 6

Search for ideal steak

(By

ROSALEEN MACBRAYNE)

In a bid to find the perfect steak, a Taupo restaurant owner, Mr E. Roelofsen, has gone into the battery beef business. For the six to eight months of their lives, under his care, his cattle will do nothing but eat, sleep, stand up, or lie down. He recently took delivery of th ■ first beasts which will be raised at his experimental battery beef farm at Acacia Bay. Allowing three months for “tc thing troubles,” Mr Roelofsen plans to house 80 beasts. "The first steak to come out of here, in about seven months, will be worth $9000,” hj said, looking round his well-planned, wellequipped shed. BOUND TO STALLS Something new to New Zealand, the experiment is designed to produce the gi_in fed, stall-bound animals so popular with beef-eaters in other parts of the world. During the six to eight months it takes to break down the muscle system of the you..g beasts, all they do

is eat, sleep, stand up or lie down, and become tender. The cattle which arrived first were six 10-month-old Hereford steers Mr Roelofsen bought at Putaruru. “But the next lot might all be Angus heifers. I am aiming to find out which animals produce the best restaurant steaks,” he said. A Dutchman, Bert Roelofsen came to New Zealand six years ago and, with his New Zealar 1 wife, Elizabeth, opened the Northern Star Steak Tavern in Taupo. In those days, the average New Zealander wanted steak and onions and was satisfied as long as the steak was large. But tastes have now changed, he says. SPECIAL FEEDING “New Zealanders, particularly young people who have been overseas, are demanding better quality. More than half the public is prepared to pay extra for expensive cuts of meat, but the meat industry is not keeping up with the change. “We buy die best beef, but the quality is variable. With restaurant trade everexpanding, there is a need

for consistent quality. Now I will be able to follow the process from the paddock to the table. Before, I could not complain to the farmer who produced the beef because it came to me through a middle man.”

Mr Roelofsen believes the average diner does not really taste his steak, because he has tomatoes, mushrooms or some other accompaniment. He feels he will be able to produce a better steak by breaking down the muscle system of his cattle with specialised feeding. The young beasts are fed on dry lucerne with supplementary feeding of caked maize and barley which has vitamins added. The animals are kept in small pens within easy reach of their food and water containers, which are refilled automatically.

Open across the front, the barn has a lean-to providing shelter from rain. The beasts stand on timber over a concrete floor and get no exercise so they do not develop muscles. This means the meat will be tender and tasty—the taste is all in what the animals are fed.

Manure is washed through holes in the back wall of the barn and falls into a gully, ready for stacking and later use on the paddocks. The Roelofsens have 11 of their 17 acres of land planted in lucerne and the first cut has already been made. They hope to get three or four cuts annually. A butcher by trade, Mr Roelofsen will himself prepare the meat for his restaurant tables. And that first $9OOO steak, seven months from now?

“I won’t be selling that one —nobody could afford to buy it. Instead, someone will be getting it on the house.”