Our Partners
Long term collaboration with local and international people and businesses is a critical part of who we are and how we remain competitive in a global beef supply chain. Many of these relationships span more than 20 years and some nearly 50 years, and often across generations. To have good partners, you need to be a good partner.
One of our key partners and friends in the business is the Leachman family whom we have been working closely with for nearly 40 years.
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Our two programs have been pursuing very similar selection goals and with the recent increased emphasis on beef quality in New Zealand and with the increasingly global marketplace, our selection goals are essentially the same today. As such, it was an easy decision to combine our genetic predictions into a single analysis. It is no surprise that the animal rankings stayed very much the same as what had been predicted in both separate analyses. While Rissington and Leachman have somewhat distinct environments, the birth weights, weight per day of age through 400 day, and mature cow weights are very similar as are ultrasound comparisons. This exciting development allows our cattle to be truly compared on a global scale. This enables us to see first-hand the latest genetics and developments and keep abreast of market developments. Leachman Cattle of Colorado is based in Fort Collins, Colorado and has co-operator breeders throughout the US, selling over 2,000 bulls annually.
Zoetis is a global animal health company. They discover, develop, manufacture and commercialize medicines, vaccines and diagnostic products, which are complemented by biodevices, genetic tests and precision livestock farming. Zoetis serves veterinarians, livestock producers and people who raise and care for farm and companion animals in more than 100 countries. Zoetis has one of the broadest portfolios of animal genetics products and support services in the industry. Their advanced genetic solutions are tailored to provide accurate genetic predictions that can help livestock producers across species and regions increase the economic returns on their breeding programs.
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We have been a long time customer of Zoetis but now working together with the USA and NZ/Aus based team as part of the Leachman global partners group. As a group we collectively contributed our data of more than 1.2 million animals as the primary data source in the development of the Zoetis Inherit Select product. This enables our NZ customers to generate the same breeding values and $Profit(r) indexes to rank their heifer replacements and cows on future profitability, just as we have done in our seedstock herd – all through a simple DNA test. After more nearly 50 years of performance recording our beef cattle and a 30 year partnership with Leachman, it is a huge milestone to be part of this collaboration, allowing customers to directly benefit in the selection of their females and not just the bull or semen they purchase from us. See Inherit Select to learn more about the information and other benefits.
LIC (Livestock Improvement Corporation) is a farmer cooperative owned by NZ dairy farmers. They are the largest herd improvement company in the NZ dairy industry. We have been working with LIC for over 30 years to package and deliver the very best beef products for the non-replacement part of local dairy farmers business. This has grown substantially in the last decade as the interest from dairy farmers and the wider dairy supply chain in a more planned approach to non-replacement calves and the useful life of these animals. We supply Angus, Profit Maker®, Charolais and Simmental semen that can be accessed directly from your local LIC representative or LIC international.
Southern Pastures is in the top 10 largest dairy farming businesses in New Zealand with farms in the South Waikato and Canterbury regions with a mission to deliver premium health-giving dairy products, taking an ethical and consumer-led approach. We met the Southern Pastures team in 2020 and instantly got on well, beginning the journey of helping them build a system to expand the beef (non-replacement) side of their business. We both had expertise but agreed there were gaps in our knowledge, so we set a measured plan to fill those knowledge gaps. That journey continues today and has recently expanded with the establishment of a dedicated beef producer group in partnership with Southern Pastures and leading meat processor Taylor Preston—aligning breeding, production, and processing to create greater value, traceability, and long-term supply chain resilience.
Taylor Preston is one of New Zealand’s leading meat processors with a strong commitment to quality, traceability, and long-term industry partnerships. We established a dedicated beef producer group with them along with Southern Pastures. This collaboration brings together leading expertise in meat processing, beef genetics, and sustainable dairy farming to drive greater integration and value through the beef supply chain. By aligning goals across breeding, production, and processing, the group aims to deliver consistent, high-quality beef that meets evolving market demands while supporting environmental stewardship and long-term profitability for producers.
In 2018 we partnered with Vytelle, a global leader in precision livestock technology, to accelerate genetic progress and deliver more efficient, productive beef animals. This was the first Vytelle Sense system in New Zealand to leverage Vytelle’s advanced data-driven performance analytics and precision tools alongside our long-standing expertise in beef breeding and supply chain integration. Together, the partnership is focused on identifying and multiplying elite genetics more rapidly and accurately, supporting both the beef and dairy sectors with high-performing sires that deliver proven value throughout the production chain.
​We have worked with John Hepburn since the 1990’s as part of Animal Breeding Services (ABS). When ABS stopped operating in 2025 and John and his family started RSG with his friends from the USA and took over much of the ABS business with a fresh lens, we were happy to continue the long association. We collect large quantities of semen for the domestic dairy market and some export markets and since 2010, we have also been heavily involved in developing our customised bull breeding, utilising TVR (trans-vaginal recovery), IVP (in vitro production), and sexed semen technologies to accelerate our genetic gain rapidly. A strong partner with very experienced group of staff that are world class at what they do is vital to our business.
We have known the owners of Ruminate for more than 25 years and when we established our feedlot nearly 10 years ago to test our bulls we needed needed a partner in the area of animal nutrition and these guys were a great local option. Since then they have become an integral part of the team designing diets but also jointly working how we optimise the wonderful pastoral environment we have in NZ with supplements to support the health, wellbeing and performance of our animals and a number of our farmer partners.
