At 75 years young, David Blackmore isn’t doing a great job of retiring. His son Ben Blackmore is now CEO of the brand that helped propel Australian beef to worldwide fame, so the career farmer created an entirely new breed of cattle as something of a side project.

“I got to the stage where my physicality wasn’t good enough to keep digging post holes,” he laughs. “[But] I knew that if I retired and sat under my wife’s feet, it would be the quickest divorce in history.”

delicious. is talking to the renowned breeder and farmer on the cusp of the 20th delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Awards. He dominated the early years of the awards, winning Producer of the Year and a Hall of Fame right out of the gate. Sitting in his study, David starts counting up Produce Awards on his shelves, giving up at around 10. The wins were a complete surprise at the time – chef nominations landing them in the finals year after year.

“I thought it was a bit crazy… I’m a bit embarrassed about all of that,” he admits. “My wife and I aren’t foodies; we’re farmers through and through, and we did things differently to other farmers. All I was interested in was making the very best beef I could.”

Credit: Supplied

David’s latest venture, the pasture-fed Rohne, might be in its infancy, but it shows the producer is still top of his game (just this year, he was just recognised with an Order of Australia Medal for services to the beef cattle industry). The aim with Rohne is to challenge the dominance of Angus as Australia’s best grass-fed beef, with top restaurants competing for the small herd. Blackmore is also the only Australian producer of the hulking, grass-fed Spanish breed Rubia Gallega and Mishima, an extremely rare breed originating from one island in Japan.

Fishing out his phone, David reads a text from Neil Perry, whose restaurant Margaret was recently named the second-best steak restaurant in the world. The legendary chef has been a supporter of Blackmore Wagyu since day dot, but is currently messaging about the Mishima short rib on Margaret’s menu.

“So good we sold 12 last night,” David reads. “They all said best steak they’ve ever eaten.”

Credit: Supplied

Related story: Sydney is declared the best city for steaks in the world

The Blackmores cherish their relationships with chefs. After all, it was chefs that were their first spokespeople. After Blackmore started breeding Japanese wagyu in 1988, Perry and his ilk were the first to put it on their menus (where it remains nearly 20 years later). Anthony Bourdain was an early adopter and, after Perry wrangled Heston Blumenthal and The French Laundry’s Thomas Keller into a fundraising dinner for the Starlight Foundation, at which he cooked Blackmore’s beef, both chefs were soon serving it at their restaurants.

The global reputation of Blackmore Wagyu is nowhere more felt than in Japan, where the Blackmores have featured in several documentaries (and David has been dubbed ‘Mr Wagyu’, in recognition of his introductions of this Japanese breed to the world).

David puts it down to the reliability chefs have come to expect from them.  “To us, it’s right down to the end customer of the chefs; it’s not just supplying the restaurants,” he says. “We think our reputation is not based on our best beef, it’s based on our worst beef. A lot of producers don’t get this. It’s very easy to make good-quality beef in spring and autumn… We want the product to go out every month to be exactly the same.”

Credit: supplied

While the Blackmores are still able to maintain that consistency and keep their global supply chains fed, they’re not above the stressors hitting farmers around the world. David references the once-in-a-decade drought devastating South Australia – with some regions seeing their lowest rainfall since records began – and the floods in Queensland that killed an estimated 100,000 head of cattle earlier this year.

“I think for the next 4-5 years we’re going to see a world shortage of beef,” David cautions. This increasingly volatile backdrop makes the strength of the Blackmore business all the more remarkable.

“Something we noticed at the Awards, we were able to present year-after-year because it was sustainable,” David says. “Sustainable can mean a lot of different things to different people: looking after your animals, looking after your earth and the flora and fauna. But you’ve got to be financially viable, or you’re not going to be sustainable.

“The main thing that we’re most proud of is the longevity of the brand.”

Related story: Everything you need to know about the 20th anniversary of the delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Awards