Our Process

To ensure we deliver an excellent quality meat product to our customers we are involved in all aspects of the supply chain including breeding, backgrounding, lotfeeding, meat marketing and retail. This ensures the family has direct input and control over each step in the production process and is a guarantee to our customers that our beef orders will be supplied in full, on time, to specifications.

MDH's branded beef is:

Our cattle are born and raised on predominantly native pasture in an extensive grazing environment. We take responsibility for managing the cattle grazing these holdings, along with managing the soil, pasture, water and woodlands to ensure the sustainability of our environment and the beef industry.	The MDH breeding herd is made up of high grade Brahman cows and both Angus and Shorthorn bulls are utilised for cross breeding on the MDH properties. The cross bred progeny raised on the properties provide the much sort after meat characteristics such as marbling, tenderness and favourable meat and fat colour.	All cattle are issued with an electronic tag and each time the animals are moved to a new location their individual identification numbers are recorded and stored in a nationwide database. Should the need arise, we could identify where each animal was located throughout its entire lifetime.
Finishing our cattle on grain at the company's Wallumba Feedlot on the Darling Downs gives us the ability to ensure they are in ideal condition for processing and maintain consistency in our product. Our cattle carry the Grain Fed 100 Day Certification which proves these cattle have been at our AUS-MEAT and AQIS Accredited Wallumba Feedlot for at least 100 days. The Grain Fed Certificate also guarantees that the beef has passed several meat quality assessment criteria such as: P8 fat depth, meat colour, fat colour and the animals have passed dentition and ossification assessments.	In 2015, MDH received the Premier of Queensland's Regional Exporter Award for outstanding international success by a business whose head office is based in a non-metropolitan location. MDH has had outstanding success in exporting beef to Japan, Asia and the Middle East whilst conducting business from the head office located at Devoncourt Station, 70 kilometers from Cloncurry. Julie McDonald accepted the award at the gala dinner on behalf of the McDonald family.	We process our cattle at Establishment 235 as it is regarded as one of Australia's best practice abattoirs which utilises state of the art technology. We regularly liaise with the abattoir regarding our cut specifications, packing and loadout requirements. Establishment 235 is located at Dinmore, Brisbane.