This is not a trend.
July 14, 2026
Shakespeare Hills Newsletter 21 July 2026
by Matthew Gunningham
Every Calf Matters:
Introducing Rosy Veal
Around 400,000 calves are born into Australia's dairy industry every year and never see their first month. They are the male calves, the ones the industry has no use for. They are loaded onto trucks at five days old, transported to slaughter. Nobody likes it. Not consumers. Not farmers. It is simply what the system, as it is currently structured, demands. We know this because it was the reality we were farming before we changed course. It is one of the key reasons we established Shakespeare Hills Beef — and it is why, this season, we are asking whether you would like to help us go one step further.
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What we already do
Our dairy cows calve each year in spring or autumn, timed to coincide with Tasmania's green, growing season. We retain the female calves as herd replacements. The male calves — in a conventional system — would become bobby calves.
We made a decision years ago that this would not happen here. By running beef bulls across our dairy herd after the dairy bulls, we produce beef-cross calves that carry genuine value. Every single calf for which we have a direct-to-consumer market, we keep. We grow them out on 100% grass-fed and finished pasture and sell them direct. No feedlot. No intermediary. No compromises.
We now process and sell over 150 of these animals per year — calves that would otherwise have been processed at a week old, grown instead into premium beef that reaches your table directly from our farm. Consumers really are the solution. We have seen it work, and we love it.
This seasons calves
This autumn we reared beef-cross calves on our autumn-calving dairy herd — the smaller herd that works beautifully alongside our mobile dairy. The calves stayed with their mothers on pasture. No supplementary inputs. No grain. Just mother’s milk and lush Tasmanian grass.
What we observed was brilliant. These calves grow exponentially when left to nurse naturally — and they drink a heck of a lot of milk doing it. It is a fabulous system, and we are genuinely proud of how it has run.
The challenge is this: these calves are surplus to our current direct beef sales projections. We can only keep them on the farm — growing naturally on pasture with their mothers until they’re ready — if we have a market for what they become.
That product is Rosy Veal. And that is what we’d like to talk to you about.
What's rosy veal?
Let’s start with what it is not.
Traditional veal has a difficult reputation, and for good reason. Calves raised entirely on milk, kept confined and deliberately denied sunlight to produce the palest possible meat. It is a welfare story most people rightly want no part of.
No thanks.
Rosy Veal — also called Rose Veal or Ruby Veal in different parts of the world — is the high-welfare, ethical alternative. The name tells you everything: these calves live outside, with their mothers, on pasture. They feel the sun and the wind. They graze grass. They develop naturally. Because of this, the meat develops a beautiful rosy hue rather than the artificially pale colour of conventional veal — and that colour is a sign of an animal that actually lived.
Calves are processed at around six months of age. The meat is exceptionally tender, mild in flavour, lighter than mature beef, and considered a true delicacy. And because our calves are raised on our regenerative pastures, eating a species-appropriate diet with no grain, no chemicals and no antibiotics, the nutritional profile reflects it.
We are not the first - and that’s encouraging
In the UK, Peelham Farm in Scotland’s Borders has been producing what they call ruby veal for years under organic certification. Their approach has been approved by Compassion in World Farming, who described the system as “capable of providing the highest welfare for calves reared for veal.” Their calves are raised alongside their mothers until naturally weaned, grazed on open pastures, and never see a crate. As one writer visiting the farm put it: the Peelham family believe that welfare must always take precedence over the aesthetics of pale meat. The natural colour of the meat “puts the ruby in ruby veal” — a gem of sustainability and compassion in a system that sorely needs it.
Closer to home, Tommerup’s Dairy Farm in Queensland’s Scenic Rim — a sixth-generation family farm — has been championing rose veal in Australia for years. Kay Tommerup has described the philosophy plainly: “Our male calves are not sold for slaughter at five days old, and never will be. They are not a problem for our dairy farming business — rather a beautiful part of our circular farming system.” Their calves stay with their mothers for the first one to two months before moving to the paddock, fed fresh Jersey milk and grazed on chemical-free pasture until seven to ten months of age. Tommerup’s rose veal now supplies high-end Brisbane restaurants whose chefs have, in Kay’s words, “become part of our family.”
At Shakespeare Hills, our beef-cross calves are already living exactly this life. They are part of a circular, no-waste system that values every animal born here. The question is whether we can build a Tasmanian market that supports it.
The question
We can only keep these calves on the farm, growing naturally until they are ready, if we have consumers who want what they become. We are offering Rosy Veal sides direct to you.
So we are asking:
Is there a market in Tasmania for high-welfare, ethical Rosy Veal?
Are you willing to be part of the solution by purchasing this premium product?
If any of this resonates, please send us a message, or simply reply ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to these two questions through the link below:
Your support has already transformed the lives of over 150 calves a year through Shakespeare Hills Beef. Together, we can do the same for Rosy Veal.
Every calf matters. When consumers place real value on high-welfare meat, farmers can do the right thing. That is the Shakespeare Hills way — and it is only possible because of you.
When we talk about being regenerative, organic, and 100% grass fed, we are not using fashionable language because it makes us sound different. We farm this way because it is the closest we can get to nature. It is real. It is raw. It is honest. And it is the opposite of a trend — it is a commitment to producing food in its truest form, the way it has always existed, the way the body has always known how to use it.
Farm Philosophy
“Our male calves are not sold for slaughter at five days old, and never will be. They are not a problem for our dairy farming business — rather a beautiful part of our circular farming system.”
Kay Tommerup, Tommerup’s Dairy Farm, Queensland
