The Twenty20 Beef Club was developed by Glanbia Ireland and Kepak to improve the economic sustainability of calf-to-beef systems.

Over the past few weeks, club members have commenced processing their cattle at Kepak sites across the country. Carcass quality is excellent and members are reporting a benefit of circa €100/head from the club’s pricing and bonus structure.

Economic return

There are three key elements to improving the economic return for club members:

Genetics

Selecting the best genetics has the ability to improve carcass weight and specification. Through choosing the right sires, progeny can easily add €50 plus per head in addition to feed efficiency gains.

Husbandry

Daily liveweight gain has a huge bearing on lifetime maintenance cost and overall performance. The average age at slaughter for club cattle is 24 months (five months below the national average for dairy beef cattle) and good grassland management and animal health are central to achieving these targets.

Members are delighted with the year-round advice that the technical support team provides and the performance benefits derived from the club’s protocols.

Pricing

At current market prices, the club premium is €0.25/kg carcass, which equates to up €90/head. In addition, all club cattle meeting the carcass weight range and with quality assurance (QA) get a minimum of €0.12/kg.

The breed bonuses of €0.10/kg apply and there is an additional seasonality bonus from April to June (€0.06, €0.10 and €0.06/kg respectively).

In the video (below), Twenty20 Beef Club member Patrick Brennan explains how he has benefited from joining the Twenty20 Beef Club and how the Twenty20 Club premiums give him stability to plan for the future.

Currently recruiting new club members

For more information on how to become a Twenty20 Beef Club member, please contact: Glanbia Ireland programme manager Ross Brady by emailing: [email protected]; or phoning: 086-783-4252; or by contacting Kepak at: 01-801-3000.

You can download the Twenty20 expression of interest form for 2021 here.

You can browse and download the Twenty20 brochure here.