Despite the history of some of the carcasses at this year’s Royal Show Carcass auction, prices fell far short of levels achieved last year. Two new world records were set at last year’s sale. Ivan Ratthan of Crown Butchery in Durban paid a whopping R3 000/kg for the 21,5kg Champion Ile de France lamb carcass, bred by Mark Gietzmann and Jimmy Keyser of DeBonnaire Stud near Fochville in the North West Province. Last year’s Champion Lamb Carcass was sold to Solly Moola of Meat Connection in Durban for R1 600/kg, also a world record-breaking price.
This year, however, the Champion Beef Carcass, a Hereford bred by the Cedara Agricultural College in KwaZulu-Natal, scored a near-perfect 99,97% block test, but was sold to Crown Meats in Durban for the bargain price of R38/kg. he First Reserve Champion Beef Carcass, a 99,18%-scored Bonsmara bred by Bristow Bonsmara in KZN, was auctioned to Jeremy Shearer of The Butchery restaurant in Pietermaritzburg for R32/kg. “I’m disappointed that I missed the auctioning of the Champion Beef Carcass,” said Shearer.
“Thad budgeted to spend up to R80/kg for that top carcass. It’s a loss for the breeders and competition organisers.” Had Shearer been in the bidding, Cedara would have received R21 744 for the top beef carcass, instead of the final R10 328. he Second Champion Beef Carcass, a 98,45%-scored Hereford-cross bred by the KZN Hereford Club, was auctioned off for R24/kg to the Islamic Butchery in Estcourt.
In the sheep section, the Eastern Cape’s GJ Lotter and his son Gert scored the top four awards. GJ Lotter’s White Dorper lamb carcass scored 99,42%, but was sold for only R200/kg to Durban’s Kennedy Mutton Market. White Dorpers from Gert Lotter’s Hofmeyer district farm achieved Champion Lamb Carcass, with a score of 97,96%; Second Champion Lamb Carcass with 97,82%; and the Champion Group of Four Lamb Carcasses in the competition.
The Champion was sold for R50/kg to Shaam’s Butchery in Durban, and the Reserve Champion to Crown Meats for R42/kg. Ramesh Rajpal, the bidder from Kennedy Mutton Market who bought the Champion Lamb Carcass, said he’d had permission to bid as high as R800/kg for it. However, at the R200/kg bid, none of the other bidders wanted to go higher. Had an kg bid been reached for the 20kg carcass, GJ Lotter would have gone home with R16 000 instead of R4 000. – Lloyd Phillips
KWV sells back its NMK shares
KWV Has sold its 51% share in NMK Premium Global Brands for R8 million after it bought them for R22,9 million in 2006. During the two years of KWV’s involvement in NMK, it incurred losses of R9 million, said Emil Böhme, KWV’s financial director. “Part of the losses incurred over the past two years can be attributed to a change in KWV’s management and the company being in a transitional phase,” said Böhme. “Our strategic focus has changed since the reshuffling of our direction in 2007, with a new drive to ‘optimise and simplify’ and ‘fit and trim’ our activities.
The NMK sale should be viewed in this light as it’s in line with our long-term strategic focus.” e explained that NMK had given KWV access to an on-consumption distribution business. “But we soon realised that this is a very labour-intensive business that requires high levels of interpersonal contact and fast decision-making skills,” said Böhme. “Restaurants and bars typically buy small volumes, but require fast and personal service.
Big corporate companies like KWV aren’t geared for such a business model and our involvement is slowing them down. KWV is a high-volume producer with brands that need to be managed. That is our core business. “Our products still need to be distributed and we have kept our distribution agreement with NMK.” – Wouter Kriel
