Prime Quality Meats

What does an MSA certificate mean?

 

 

A Meat Standards Australia certificate applies to beef and lamb. It means that the meat is on the top rung for quality. MSA certified meat has been monitored according to a set of criteria developed by its experts. They judge qualities such as breed, meat colour, fat depth and marbling, maturity and pH (which determines juiciness, tenderness and taste).

 

MSA inspectors advise and educate producers about optimal rearing, stress management and feeding practices. They oversee all that happens to your meat until you purchase it. MSA certified meat is graded to let you know what to expect regarding its texture and taste.

 

Our producers work hard for their MSA certificates and show them proudly. The standards are high and the rules are rigorously enforced.
To produce Prime Quality Meats, Craig Cook adds his own criteria. The animal has been humanely reared in a natural environment that meets all its physical and emotional needs. This enables it to absorb the nutrients it needs to produce the healthiest meat, and prevents the meat from being flooded with stress hormones. And Craig Cook will not sell meat from animals fed hormone growth promotants.

Meat wearing labels

You’ll notice that many of Prime Quality Meats cuts wear their brand names. That’s because our handpicked producers are doing exceptional things to produce better meat and we think you’d want to know about that. Craig has established alliances and works with not only the prominent suppliers but also the boutique and innovative, the environmentally reverent and the superb meat passionate – just like him.

 

Here is a little about them:

Junee Gold Prime Lamb is grown in picturesque Junee and nearby Narrandera which is on the banks of the beautiful Murrumbidgee River.

When Junee process their lamb, they choose the best 20% for Craig Cook which means his lamb products have an amazing tenderness and flavour. Craig's lambs are also aged for five or six days prior to sale which gives them their outstanding eating quality.

In 1992, Otway established a free range breeding herd to produce pigs in a natural, outdoor environment where the welfare of the pig was paramount. That enabled them to become the first pig producers to achieve national accreditation under the RSPCA Approved Farming Scheme. Their pigs enjoy freedom from hunger and thirst, discomfort, pain, injury or disease, fear and distress and freedom to express natural behaviour. Because they are selected for their suitability to outdoor breeding conditions and for their superior meat quality they can live natural lives and eat a natural grain-based diet free of antibiotics and hormone growth stimulants.

In 1967, Sam and Maria Cuteri migrated to Australia from Calabria, Italy. They bought their passion for farm produce and traditional cooking with them. The poultry plant they established was innovative when they built it. It still is. It is the only plant in mainland Australia that does not use spin drying and spin chilling, and therefore does not use chlorine. Chemical free, air dried chicken is naturally pinker, tastes fresher and maintains its natural juices. La Ionica chickens roam free and are reared without hormone stimulants.

Rock Valley veal is milk fed, stress free and hormone and growth stimulant free. Lush green grass, humane rearing and the care that boutique producers provide is evident in the meat that results. This is the brand that restaurants with chef’s hat awards eagerly name on their menus. It meets more stringent quality standards. You may notice that Rock Valley veal is not available at all times in our stores. We stock it in season. You and this spectacular veal deserve that care.

Begun in 1939 by Mr Frank Hart to uphold the rigorous standards of export quality beef production, the company is now owned and operated by his five sons, Henry, Frank, John, Barry and Robert. The same stringent specifications control the beef they produce. Three separate bodies monitor it to keep quality at the highest level possible. Only animals proven to be free of pesticide residues are purchased. They are fed a healthy diet free of antibiotics. John Dee’s applauded Platinum beef, marble score 2-3, is exclusive to Craig Cook Prime Quality Meats.

Farming and caring for the environment has been Angus and Sonya Dowling’s focus since 1999. They are following a family tradition established in the 1840s. They are now affirmatively organic, certified by the OFC (Organic Food Chain) and in line with all of Australia’s national organic guidelines.
They have planted native trees. Lambs graze alongside poultry in rotation to maintain pasture and soil health. Vets create the diet, housing and grazing systems that ensure optimal health and well being. They could not be doing more to produce the kind of meat Craig Cook wants to sell.

Just 400ha, only 70kms from Sydney and certified organic by the OFC. Peter and Julie Clinch’s chickens get to run around most of this abundantly green property. Being able to scratch for whatever they want is an important part of natural chicken behaviour. It keeps them healthy.
Two sheepdogs watch over the chickens 24 hours a day to protect them from predators. Otherwise they do exactly what chickens would do if Peter did not own them. If you buy an Oaks Organics chicken from Craig Cook’s Prime Quality Meats on a Tuesday afternoon, chances are it only left the farm hours before. This kind of attention to freshness and quality matters to both Peter Clinch and Craig Cook.

Blair Angus, his wife Josie and their four children, Lauren, Madelaine, John and David, are the hands on managers who oversee every waking moment of the progress their cattle make from birth to the highest quality MSA graded beef, like Blair’s parents and grandparents did before them.
The Angus properties spread across 400,000 acres of Queensland’s richest pasturelands. They run according to holistic resource management systems, with rotational grazing and nitrogen-replenishing Brigalow trees replacing artificial anything. Production is environmentally sustainable and socially conscious. The product is 100% natural -unequivocally chemical and hormone free. Kimberley Red’s Signature Beef collection is only available from Craig Cook Prime Quality Meats.