Burgers worth $5 million to farmers

World burger giant McDonald's has given the NZ meat industry a boost with a deal to buy an extra 500,000kg of angus beef for two new premium burgers reports Stuff. The contract is estimated to be worth at least an extra $5 million to the industry. The meat will be used in angus burgers in the United States, Canada and Australia, as well as in NZ, where they will sell for $7.20. Angus is noted for a fine texture and slight marbling that gives it a special flavour, and has been a four-year winner in the Steak of Origin taste contest. McDonald's is NZ's biggest beef buyer and the angus deal will lift its annual purchase to 25.2 million kilograms, 20 million of which goes overseas. AngusPure chairman Tim Brittain said the farmers' margin had not yet been set by Silver Fern Farms and Anzco, the two meat companies that would supply McDonald's, but he expected it to be around the 5 per cent paid to angus farmers in the AngusPure programme that supplies restaurants. The extra 10,000 cattle needed for the deal will come from contracted farms in Waikato, King Country, Canterbury, Taranaki and Hawke's Bay. They will have a purebred registered angus sire and a dam that is at least 50 per cent angus. Mr Brittain said the deal was a shot in the arm for the angus breed, the biggest beef cattle breed in NZ. The effects of the contract had been felt at angus sales in the past three months as farmers readied themselves for the start of the contract. Prices had risen to an average of $6000 a bull and all had sold.