Australia’s richest woman wants to sell thousand yuan steaks to China

Gina Rinehart to beef up Australian cattle bound for the mainland.

Coming soon to a steakhouse near you: more fancy Australian beef, if the richest woman from Down Under has her way.

Australian beef producer S. Kidman & Co., which is owned by billionaire Gina Rinehart, wants to export more premium steaks to the mainland by increasing their cattle herd by 25 percent to around 200,000 cows within two to three years.

“The big market opportunities are in China,” said Kidman board member and former Australian trade minister Andrew Robb. “Australia stands in a good position to cater for the premium end of that grass-fed market.”

According to Robb, premium steaks sell for as much as A$360 (¥1,780) in China and Kidman wants to sell directly to high-end restaurants. He’s not wrong; at the recently-shuttered Roosevelt Prime Steakhouse in Shanghai, a 300g, full blood Wagyu grade M9+ ribeye sold for ¥1,750. Over at 1515 West Chophouse & Bar, a 350g, Kiwami Wagyu Pedigree striploin was ¥1,688.

Kidman currently has cattle stations covering an area almost as big as Austria, or 80,000 square kilometers, and they span across four Australian states and territories. They plan to increase their stations’ capacity mainly by bringing more water to the herds. Kidman is also establishing premium brands to distribute its grass-fed beef overseas.

Australia is currently the world’s third-largest beef exporter, and exports to China are predicted to rise about 17 percent to 122,000 metric tons by June 30 this year, according to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural & Resource Economics & Sciences. The increase is driven by a burgeoning middle class and Chinese beef production can’t keep up with consumption.

Rinehart bought Kidman in 2016 for A$386.5 million (¥1.91 billion) in partnership with Shanghai CRED Real Estate Stock Co., which controls about a third of the company.