WHILE Beef Central’s 2024 US study tour is heading to some of the most significant parts of the beef supply chain, its leader Ross Keane is one of trip’s biggest attractions.

Over a career spanning more than 40 years, Ross has held some of the most senior roles in the Australian beef industry – including as the livestock manager for Australian Meat Holdings, sitting on the board of JBS and chairing the Red Meat Advisory Council and SAFEMEAT.

He has spent the last decade hosting Quadrant Agriculture Tours, where he has travelled the world and regularly to America. He said the Beef Central tour was the most technical program he has hosted.

“I would like to go on a tour like this because I would like to learn and understand the dynamic of what might happen in Australia in the next couple of years – my experience tells what happens in the US, we usually follow a couple of years later,” he said.

“We are going to see different feeding methods and we are going to see value-adding of our product, all of which is done far more extensively up there than what is done here.”

A significant drought and herd liquidation in the US in recent years has seen a lot of product going into some of Australia’s key markets and providing significant competition. Mr Keane said the situation looked like it was changing.

The tour starts in Chicago in February next year with a visit to the McDonald’s global headquarters and Ruprecht meat packing plant, which is owned by Kilcoy Global Foods, before heading through Texas and onto the Houston Livestock Show.

• For more information, including the program and costs, click here