AUSSIE MEAT ACADEMY ULTIMATE BUTCHERS' CHALLENGE

 

EZ Meat (Taiwan) emerged as the Grand Champion Butcher, walking away with cash prize of RM2,000, a trophy and award certificate. The team also won Most Innovative Meat Display & Presentation at the Aussie Meat Academy Ultimate Butchers Challenge held recently.

Aimed at advancing the butchery profession by enhancing participants' expertise in meat knowledge, cutting techniques, and essential cooking skills, the Aussie Meat Academy 'Ultimate Butchers Challenge’ is geared towards uplifting professional butchery standards and to reinvigorate and grow the profession in Malaysia.

Supported by Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) and Investment New South Wales, the competition also sets a new platform to promote the butchery profession and professionalism in support of the foodservice and retail industry.

 
Professional butchery is more than cutting meat; it also showcases the butcher’s skill in deboning, portioning, displaying creative and practical applications, reducing wastage and increasing yields.

A strong butcher’s resume includes cutting and de-boning meat, preparing displays, weighing and labelling products, reducing waste, and increasing yields. In addition, a competent butcher should be familiar with all beef and lamb cuts for various cooking methods and share this knowledge with customers. Precision cutting skill also helps maximise yield, minimise waste, and improve eating quality for shoppers.

Hosted at UCSI University, a total of 16 teams from Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia competed in the event. Participating butchers are from the 40 years old and below age group with at least a year’s professional experience. 

Each two member team comprised of at least one professional butcher. Teams had to work on one chilled Australian beef and one Australian lamb for judging and tasting.

 

 
Khairul Anuar Muhamad who’s a Lambassador and Senior Lecturer II at Taylor’s Culinary Institute, Faculty of Social Sciences and Leisure Management was the Head Judge for the Ultimate Butchers Challenge 2025.

 
Other judges included Adrian Chong, Aussie Beef Mate and Executive Chef of Hyatt Regency Kinabalu; Ridzwan Rasit, Lambassador and Executive Sous Chef, Hilton Kuala Lumpur; Eric Siew, Lambassador and Owner/Executive Chef of ABANICO Your Deli Restaurant; and Richard Tay, Aussie Beef Mate and Head Chef at CALIA, Pavilion Kuala Lumpur.

First runner-up of the Ultimate Butchers Challenge was Central Food Wholesale Ltd (Thailand). The team received RM1,000 along with a trophy and award certificates while second runner-up, Butcher Box Pte Ltd (Singapore), bagged RM800, a trophy and award certificates.

There were also RM200 cash prizes each for Best Meat Display Ideas, Best Value Added Meat Ideas, Best Ultimate Tasting Dish and Best Presented Dish. 

[UPDATED] CREAM OF ANCHOR FOOD PROFESSIONALS' CROP

To launch its latest European-style dairy range in Malaysia, Anchor Food Professionals delivered a set of exquisite afternoon tea treats by The Studio KL to the doorstep.

The exquisitely curated sweet treat selection featured Lemon Posset, Hot Chocolate in Cup, Banoffee Tart, Passion-berry Choux, British Soldier, Traditional English Scones with Sticky Toffee Pudding Butter and Summer Berries Jam, Almond Cream Butter Croissants. Savouries included Chicken Pesto on Focaccia, Truffle Honey Croquette and Sauté Mushroom and Onion Bruschetta.

It was a delicious way of showing how the new products: Anchor Chef’s Classic Whipping Cream, Anchor Classic Shredded Mozzarella Cheese, Anchor Extra Yield Cooking Cream, and Anchor Culinary Cream can be artfully incorporated to create delicious savoury and sweet morsels such as those presented in the tea offerings.

During the launch webinar, Jack Tan, Foodservice Director of Fonterra Brands Malaysia said, “The pandemic has caused consumers’ food preferences to shift. One of the most noticeable trends is more food businesses are searching for everyday functional products that provide simple and quick benefits to their food or beverage creations.

“Today’s consumers are also drawn to feel-good products. While the pandemic has been tough on many food businesses, we help them stay on top of these trends by constantly improving their favourite recipes with better flavours, textures, presentation, and overall quality.”

Award-winning pastry chef Jean-Francois Arnaud then demonstrated how he used Anchor Chef’s Classic Whipping Cream to create exquisite Red Fruit Cloud and Blueberry Cream Brioche, explaining the product’s many advantages during the process.

Then Pele Kuah, Brew House’s Group Executive Chef shared his preference on the use of Anchor Extra Yield Cooking Cream in the kitchen as he prepared Salmon Alfredo Pasta with Lemon & Ikura and Nasi Lemak – two signature specialities from the Brew House.

One of the founders of myBurgerLab, Renyi Chin showed two new recipes: Buttermilk Cheesy Fried Chicken Burger and Baked Cheese Rice using Anchor Classic Shredded Mozzarella Cheese – a traditional-style mozzarella cheese with flavoursome and complex taste to wrap up the webinar session.

Jack Tan also highlighted Anchor Chef’s Classic Whipping Cream which is designed to bring reliable performance and functional stability with its light and airy texture. "It’s the perfect infusion for any rich delicacy – be it hot, cold, or frozen."

Chefs, bakers, pastry makers, passionate cooks, and home-bakers can obtain Anchor European range of mozzarella cheese and creams through their distributor partners, while consumers can purchase the products at major supermarket chains and bakery ingredients shops.

For more information, visit Anchor Food Professionals’ official website at www.anchorfoodprofessionals.com, or follow www.facebook.com/AnchorFoodProfessionalsMY and www.instagram.com/anchorfp.my.

NEWS FLASH

Anchor Food Professionals together with Star Media Group also launched Anchor Start Up – a course-by-course bakers’ online learning platform accessible at https://startup.kuali.com.

Jack Tan, Food Service Director, Fonterra Brands Malaysia said their mission is to serve up inspirations to Food & Beverage businesses, including home bakers. “With Start Up, bakers can drive their business performance by harnessing specific skill sets learnt as they carve their own competitive advantages, and sell more via The Batter Place listing platform. With this initiative as a way for bakers to skill up and scale up, we believe it will create a catalytic effect for the baking community in Malaysia.”

For more information, visit https://www.kuali.com/kuali-bakers-programme/.

 

MEAT LIVESTOCK AUSTRALIA CHALLENGES CHEFS TO RAISE THEIR GAME

Doubletree by Hilton Kuala Lumpur emerged as the Champion of  the 2019 Golden Bull Culinary Competition at this year’s Culinaire Malaysia 2019 which was held from 24-27 September.

The five-man team beat eight other teams in creating the best beef and lamb dishes, to win a challenge tropy, cash prize of RM6,888 and medals. The 1st Runner-Up Royal Brunei Catering walked away with a challenge tropy, cash prize of RM5,888 and medals. Fudehui Group from China grabbed the 2nd runner-up spot, bagging a challenge tropy, cash prize of RM3,888 and medals.

Held in conjunction with Culinaire Malaysia, Meat Livestock Australia (MLA) is the main sponsor of the Golden Bull Culinary Competition. 

 

 

 

 

A total of nine teams from Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Korea, China, Brunei and Taiwan cooked up a storm, pitting their culinary skills and versatility in creating beef and lamb dishes.

 

 

 

 

Judging was based on the teams who displayed best use of secondary cuts of Australian beef and lamb for appetisers and main course. Points were also awarded for cooking temperature, texture, cutting, preparation and seasoning.

 

 

For the MLA Iron Butcher Challenge, Muhamad Adam Yahya from Sama-Sama Hotel KLIA was declared the MLA Iron Butcher champion. He went home with a special knife set, a challenge trophy and a certificate of achievement.

The 1st Runner-Up was Muhammad Faizal Mokhzir from Atlas Gourment Sdn Bhd and 2nd Runner-Up was Mohamad Fauzan Abdul Rahman from Hero Market Sdn Bhd also received similar prizes.

 

This year, 21 butchers from the retail and food-service sectors competed in the preliminary rounds, cutting and portioning out beef carcass and primal cuts of lamb within the allocated 1.5 hours.

 

 

 

 

Judges watched the competitors like hawks, awarding marks for preparation and boning techniques, value-adding ideas (marination), cuts applicable to food service, clean muscle separation, time management, good hygiene practices, orderliness at work, minimisation of food wastage, cost effectiveness and presentation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All the quality Aussie beef and lamb for both MLA competitions were supplied by Stanbroke, Murray Pure and Thomas Foods from Australia.