Every now and again, you hear of someone who is trying something different and it catches your ear. The talk of a butcher somewhere in Cork buying 500 Wagyu straws in order to develop a supply of Wagyu-cross animals for his business caught my ear.

The direct translation of Wagyu is Japanese cow and they are known for delivering intensely marbled beef. It wasn’t long before curiosity got the better of me and I arranged to meet with Michael Twomey, the man behind the Wagyu demand.

I worked in a butcher’s shop back when I was in school and, as I walked in the door of Twomey’s Butcher’s in Macroom, memories came flooding back – the smells and the sharpening of the blades.

You hear a lot about people moving away from buying their meat with the local butcher today. I’m guilty of it myself at times, but as I stood on the floor of the shop in Macroom, there was a steady flow of people coming through the doors.

It wasn’t long before Michael met me and we got down to the meat of it.

Why Wagyu?

“The dream would be to become well known for selling Wagyu beef. Who knows, we might even get to exporting it?,” said Michael.

“But we will start small and build the supply first and, in the meantime, it will allow us to market the product so that there is a margin for everyone involved.”

To date they have slaughtered a number of crossbred Wagyu animals from a local breeder and have received positive feedback from customers directly and from their catering clients.

“I see it as a challenge. I like to have the best, or at least have it as good as we can,” said Michael. “I like eating beef and we have good Angus beef, so this is the next step. They are doing it throughout the world so why can’t we do it?

“Ideally, if we could get the Wagyu from all Angus cows it would be far easier to market it. I have no doubt that the beef would be good from other breeds but it would be great to standardise the product and have similar quality and similar carcase sizes,” he said.

Michael Twomey has bought 500 Wagyu straws – an investment of €11,500 – to be distributed to farmers for free with the intention of developing a supply of crossbred Wagyu in his area.

The aim is to identify farmers with a suitable cow for breeding. Michael will give them the straws for free, provided they will sell the stock back to him when the time comes.

Michael will guarantee them 50c/kg over the R4 price including the QA bonus for their stock when they are ready for slaughter nearly three years from now.

The process

“Any person who is interested, I am going to take their details, such as the breed of cows that they have and how many they would be interested in breeding.

“I don’t mind whether or not they are planning to finish them themselves or sell them as weanlings to another farmer in the group for finishing.

“This is in the early stages and requires a lot of planning still. The straws will be given out on a pro-rata basis and some farmers will hopefully purchase additional straws themselves.

“It would be great to get a mix of spring and autumn calvers to spread the supply. Both ourselves and the farmers who are getting involved will have to work together in order to produce the best quality meat so that we can develop this market. The cattle will have to be finished right,” said Michael.

“Psychologically, this will take some getting used to for me. Some of these animals will be over 24 months of age.

“The more difficult thing for me to accept is buying steers. Right now, I only buy heifers and have never killed a steer, ever. For this to work for the farmers, I will have to take steers.

“Some of the Wagyu carcases slaughtered to date were up to 445kg in weight and that is too big. Some of the cattle killed last year were off pedigree Limousin cows, the lightest was 380kg and the heaviest was 445kg between 24 and 28 months of age.

“In time, there may be potential to develop a grading system for the cattle based on the proportion of Wagyu in their breeding.

“For example, an animal which is three-quarter bred would get more per kilogramme than a half-bred animal. This is only a thought for now, but we will work hard to make this a reality.

“This is helping the farmer to be a little different and helping them to stand out in the market to give everyone a little more from the process,” he said.

Today’s meat

Today, Michael only buys heifers. He aims to buy Angus or Hereford, most of which are Angus from the dairy herd.

The majority of what we saw in the fridge were Friesian-Angus cross. This is where the more pronounced marbling is coming from in the meat, said Michael.

When Michael started out butchering, the heifers were all Hereford and Angus, but all the heifers that they were slaughtering were 360kg to 400kg liveweight.

A heifer that time at 430kg or 440kg liveweight would have been way over-fat.

They were all coming off British Friesian cows. Now, they are coming off Holstein Friesian cows and have to go higher in weight to be finished.

The carcases that time were like peas in a pod. Every carcase was in the region of 200kg and it was nice and easy to work with them, said Michael.

He prefers to buy his heifers under 24 months, for two reasons. Firstly, it adds to the quality of the beef and, secondly, his processing plant isn’t permitted to bone anything over 30 months.

He doesn’t like the carcase going over 300kg and, generally, the heifers that he slaughters weigh 240kg to 300kg.

It is often the case that heifers come in lighter than this, with carcases as low as 220kg to 230kg.

“The problem here is that it costs me the same to get a 200kg carcase killed as it does to get a 300kg carcase killed, and you don’t get the same bone out,” said Michael.

“The heavier ones are handier for boning out a striploin or a fillet as the smaller animals are a bit light for boning. But you have a customer for everything,” explained Michael.

“The most important thing is quality. It is nice to have that bit of marbling and a bit of fat for flavouring. You need to have what goes onto the customer’s plate right,” said Michael.

“You will get a higher bone out from a Charolais, a Limousin or a Belgian Blue, but it won’t taste the same and customers will let me know this,” he said.

Michael took great pride in being able to tell me that, if you go up to the shop now, all of the beef that is being sold this week will have the date of birth displayed and the farmer’s name showing the farm where the beef came from. Eighty percent of what they use in the shop is from within a 20-mile radius.

Michael is consistently dealing with 25 to 30 farmers who know what he is looking for in an animal. They are killing 15 to 20 animals for the shops and kill a number for farmers’ own deep freezer on a weekly basis also.

The journey

The week Michael opened his shop in Macroom, he was behind on his mortgage and money was tight, but he managed to build the business. That was back in 1996.

Since then, he has opened a second shop, an online shop and developed a processing plant, which has space to hang 60 cattle. He invested €1.3m in the facility, which opened in November 2007.

“We have 21 people working in our team and there is a good atmosphere in our shops. You need to move with the times. You can buy stir-frys or garlic potatoes ready to cook.

“Things like this help make our customers’ lives easier and that’s what brings them back. We do college pre-packs for students heading away for the week. We will vacuum-pack five or six items for them.”

Twomey Butcher’s were 10 years Guaranteed Irish before Christmas. Why Guaranteed Irish?

“I remember the ads growing up and they always resonated with me that we should support Ireland, support our own,” said Michael.

“This comes at a cost. For example, we hand-bone all our own chickens. This ensures that we have 100% Irish and it requires just over two full-time jobs per week. That’s a commitment to having everything Irish.”