Ruby’s Eyes Wide Open to the World

“So, my mum’s parents came out from Malta, and my Grandpa, he just always loved beef cattle. His love came from growing up in Malta where he had a few small numbers of cattle. 

When he came to Australia, he turned up with absolutely nothing in his pockets and just worked super hard. 

He worked on the wharves and later retired while he was still quite young. It gave him the chance to then build our family farm near Inverleigh in Victoria, where he established Maverick Simmentals which then later led to setting up our stud Mavstar Simmentals.

My Grandpa would sell the cattle throughout southern Australia and overseas to China for breeding purposes and their stud attributes. 

I was very young at this stage, but I remember we quite often would have our show team in the sheds, and different delegates would come in with their translator and just walk through and assess the cattle.

That’s where my interest started with export, I was just so intrigued, like we had people from China and Mongolia coming to our farm to look at our cattle with us and it was eye-opening, even being that young. 

I was like, ‘wow, this is really cool’. I started to get an appreciation that you needed the whole supply chain involved in export, and that it was never a two-sided sort of thing. 

So I think from the perspective of [career] development it was always a very intriguing industry, there was always endless opportunity. 

Today my mum, dad, brother, and I are running Mavstar Simmentals.

 I’ve also been able to focus more on my rural photography business, it’s shown me a whole different side that I’d never really thought of when I was young as well. 

I recently had the chance to head up to the Northern Territory, obviously I have seen the industry down south here in the export yards, and I’ve been a producer my whole life but up there it just seemed like there were so many different variables up there.

It’s a different world up there, the admiration I have for the cattle, they’re beautiful creatures, they have such a presence and they’re such an important part of our supply chain feeding people around the world.” 

– Ruby