Do cattle fed with Cadbury chocolate make for tastier Wagyu? Chefs weigh in
Raising cattle on confectionery might sound crazy, but to Australian Wagyu producer Mayura Station, it’s ingenious and makes a difference
Most meat lovers will be familiar with the grass-fed versus grain-fed debate, but what happens if instead you feed cattle chocolate? Over at Australia’s Mayura Station, that’s exactly what they’ve been doing – and it’s certainly caught our attention.
“Consistency is very difficult and you’re dealing with nature,” he points out. “This isn’t something that comes out of a factory, so to actually refine the process so the Wagyu comes out the same every time, season after season, is incredibly difficult, but that has always been my goal. My motto is ‘excellence without compromise’, and that goes for everything we do.”
“As a one-source operation, all our cattle are raised under a single property, so they drink the same water, eat the same grass and breathe the same air,” he explains. “They’re all fed the same grain, which we grow ourselves through our own cropping programme, and our ration doesn’t change even if prices go up. During the summer, when it’s incredibly hot, or in the winter, when it’s cold and pouring with rain, we bring the cattle into our massive barn, where we can control the climate, so we also take that seasonal influence out.”
De Bruin is evidently something of a perfectionist. Constantly on the lookout for what else might improve the quality of Mayura Station’s beef, he came to the conclusion that simply feeding his cattle grass and grains like most other farms wasn’t enough, and after speaking with a few Japanese producers, he came up with the rather novel idea of adding chocolate – yes, chocolate – from Cadbury to his cattle feed.