Australia is the world’s biggest goat meat exporter, but Australians are among the least likely in the world to eat it.<\/p>\n
Producers and scientists are working to put more goat on Australian plates by looking at genetics and finding new ways to use the meat.<\/p>\n
Australia produces about 44 per cent of the world’s goat meat exports, according to Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA), and in 2024, there were nearly 3.5 million goats slaughtered, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.<\/p>\n
MLA’s 2025 global goat meat snapshot said Australian production had increased by 248 per cent since 2020.<\/p>\n
But in the past, only 9 per cent of domestic goat meat has been consumed locally.<\/p>\n
Goat producer Jo Stuart from Collie in western New South Wales is keen to increase that margin.<\/p>\n
She said she found herself often having to tell people “there’s more to goat than curry”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jo Stuart, also known as The Gourmet Goat Lady, at her property in Collie. (ABC Western Plains: Jen McCutcheon)<\/p>\n
In an effort to make goat meat more accessible, she has started producing a goat salami.<\/p>\n
“We’re hoping to bring something new to the market that people haven’t tasted before,” Ms Stuart said.<\/p>\n
She would like to see more Australians cooking or eating meals such as goat steak, pies and sausages.<\/p>\n
“I’ve always wanted it incorporated into people’s food because it’s \u2026 high in protein, high in iron.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Measured Goats program will help identify key breeding values for the industry. (ABC Western Plains: Jen McCutcheon)<\/p>\n
Plenty of alternatives<\/p>\n
The lack of demand from Australians has made goat meat an uncommon sight in many butcher shops.<\/p>\n
Emilio’s Butcher in Rozelle, Sydney, stocks the meat, but typically only goes through one goat a fortnight.<\/p>\n
“It’s not a lot \u2026 a lot of it is bone-in diced goat \u2026 and a lot of people buy that for, I assume, curries,” Max Sovechles said.<\/p>\n
“I would say for the most part, people are buying it to try it, as well as some regulars who know it’s here.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Goat meat is a niche protein in Australia. (ABC News: Cam Lang)<\/p>\n
He said the meat was often described by customers as gamey and had been hard to source in the past.<\/p>\n
“And [there was] not a whole lot of reason to get it \u2014 we have plenty of lamb, and goat wasn’t necessarily tasting better than lamb,” Mr Sovechles said.<\/p>\n
Dubbo butcher Stephen Boyle said goat had only entered displays in the last 10 years.<\/p>\n
He said many farmers culled wild goats, which meant the quality of the meat was inconsistent.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Measured Goats project is looking to quantify the genetics of goats, including Rangeland goats. (ABC Rural: Amy Phillips)<\/p>\n
Industry in its infancy<\/p>\n
Quality has improved thanks to the farming of goats, and now a collaborative research and development project is aiming to increase consistency by creating a dataset of genetics.<\/p>\n
The Measured Goats project is co-funded by the NSW Department of Primary Industry and Regional Development and Meat and Livestock Australia and led by livestock scientist Tom Granleese.<\/p>\n
“The goat industry has not been very good adopters of using breeding values,” Dr Granleese said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Australia only consumes 9 per cent of its total goat production. (ABC Western Plains: Jen McCutcheon)<\/p>\n
Dr Granleese said utilising breeding values was necessary for any animal breeder.<\/p>\n
“We’re aiming to breed up to 10,000 kids over these five years of the project, in five cohorts,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We’ll come up with some really good key messages and recommendations for industry.”<\/p>\n
Goat Industry Research, Development and Adoption Committee member James Boland said despite a higher inventory of goats on the First Fleet \u2014 upon which the animals arrived in Australia \u2014 than cattle, the latter industry had moved ahead in leaps and bounds.<\/p>\n
“The goat industry is really still in its infancy,” he said.<\/p>\n
“There’s a massive opportunity to do more with goats, to learn more about goats and to normalise goat meat consumption in Australia.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia is the world’s biggest goat meat exporter, but Australians are among the least likely in the world…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,38547,28831,115285,115287,115283,115286,15158,44,115284],"class_list":{"0":"post-178595","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-export-market","11":"tag-goat","12":"tag-goat-export","13":"tag-goat-meat","14":"tag-goat-production","15":"tag-goat-salami","16":"tag-livestock","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-salami"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}