Entries open for Affco Best of the Bay Beef Competition

One of the joys of the job for Affco regional livestock manager Wayne File as he tucks into the finished product. Photo / File

The search is on for a steak which will become part of a feature accolade at this year's New Zealand Royal A&P Show in Hastings.

The hunt has started with the opening of entries for the Affco Best of the Bay Beef Competition. They close on September 24 and the winner will be announced at the October 23-25 show.

Affco regional livestock manager Wayne File said the Supreme Winner of the Best of the Bay competition is a prestigious and highly-sought title among Hawke's Bay's farmers, and helping decide on a winner, as he has done in the past, is a job he keenly takes on.

Hawke's Bay is the perfect location for producing world-class steak, he said, and added: "The quality of beef coming out of Hawke's Bay is absolutely fantastic."

The three-part judging process includes a livestock buyer's judging of the live animal and then at the processing plant where factors such as weight, fat, meat colour and size of rib eye.

The top 10 then go on to a taste test at the show, the fifth time in a row that Hawke's Bay's 156-year-old A&P Show has been staged as the Royal Show, effectively a national championship for many stock classes.

File said competing steaks will be cooked in front of an audience at the show and presented to a panel of judges who will consider aroma, juiciness, tenderness and texture with a supreme winner announced on the day.

Hawke's Bay A&P Society general manager Sally Jackson said the competition is "an important flagship event for the show" and provides a "brilliant opportunity" to tell the pasture to plate story.

"The New Zealand Royal A&P Show is a great platform for education along with championing the primary sector and recognising farming excellence," she said.

"This competition certainly ticks all those boxes and provides the urban community with a greater understanding of what it takes to get the best tasting steak onto the supermarket shelf."

The winners wil receive $500 for first, second $300 and third $200. Winners of each category, on hoof, on hook and tasting, will also receive a Weber BBQ donated by Turfreys Hawke's Bay.

For entry forms contact: entries@hawkesbayshow.co.nz.