APAC’s best beef: Australia, Japan take home top awards in 2024 World Steak Challenge
This is the second year in a row that Australia has retained its title of World’s Best Steak producers, with Australian producer Jack’s Creek & Albers coming out on top.
Its grain-fed pure bred wagyu sirloin was also named the World’s Best Grain-Fed Sirloin, the World’s Best Wagyu, and Oceanian’s Best Steak.
This marks another year of success for the brand, which took home the title of World’s Best Steak in 2023 for its produce. It also represents an impressive year for Australia as a whole, which took home the most gold medals, with 21 steaks from the country bagging gold.
Closer to home, Japan’s Itoham Yonekyu Holdings won in the Asia’s Best Steak category for its Ito Wagyu A5 + Japanese Wagyu Ribeye.
Other winners included Argentine producer Frigorifico Rioplatense, which was recognised as South America’s Best Steak and claimed gold in the World’s Best Grass-Fed Fillet category.
Poland also performed well, with Polish producer ABP Poland taking home Europe’s Best Steak, World’s Best Grain-Fed Ribeye, and World’s Best Grain-Fed Fillet for its Red and White Platinum Marbled steaks.
Dawn Meats and Dunbia claimed the all-new ESG Award, while Kettyle Irish Foods was awarded the brand-new Innovation prize for its industry-leading salt moss ageing process.
This year also saw the introduction of the Small Producer and Large Producer awards, with Spanish-based Carnicas Nay taking the former and New Zeland-based First Light Farms the latter.
The winners were announced at a special dinner held earlier this week (Monday 11 November) at the steakhouse Smith & Wollensky, following a vigorous judging process held earlier in the year in Amsterdam.
The World Steak Challenge was first launched in 2015 by FoodNavigator-Asia’s sister title Restaurant and is judged by more than 100 judges from across the world.
Overall, more than 300 medals were awarded to steaks at this year’s World Steak Challenge, including 112 gold medals, 117 silver medals and 104 bronze medals.
