What it does: Food and Beverage Manufacturing
Mission: to be trusted globally as producers of the finest quality Australian beef
Size and presence: Around 400
Best known for: The Company is an integrated cattle and beef producer, and runs Australia's largest herd of wagyu cattle
The good bits: Genuinely supports in career progression if you put in the work to prove yourself. Management is genuinely invested in addressing the cultural challenges that the business has faced over the years and are making some good headway.
The not so good bits: No company is without its challenges - growing pains are evident from a lot of positive change. However, Management and the Executive seem to be working hard at improving this.
In 1824, AACo was established as a land development company with the assistance of the British Parliament’s Crown Grant of 1,000,000 acres in the Port Stephens area of the Colony of New South Wales. An image of the original Royal Charter is shown above.
In 1831 Shorthorn bulls were imported from England to develop the company herds. By 1850, despite droughts, depressions and some heavy stock losses, the company’s sheep numbers had risen to 114,118; cattle numbers to 8,306; and horse numbers to 1,436.
During World War I, from 1914-1918, there was a large labour shortage, especially for wool production, and so the company moved away from sheep to increase their cattle production. So began a process of selling southern estates and moving north, purchasing Headingly Station at Urandangie in Queensland in 1916 and Avon Downs in the Northern Territory in 1921.
At the end of the Second World War, the company became a specialised cattle enterprise and in the 1950’s Santa Gertrudis cattle were introduced to upgrade the Shorthorn herds. In the 1980’s, Braham cattle were introduced to the company’s new land in the Gulf region.
In 1990, the Goonoo aggregation was formed and developed in Central Queensland, and in 1994, a 17,500 capacity feedlot was established. Also in 1994, the purchase of a further breeding station, Austral Downs in the Northern Territory, led to specialisation of cattle production to maintain high growth rates.
In 2006, AACo purchased the Westholme herd, signifying a serious move into the Wagyu breed to build on the growing success of the branded beef business.
In 2014, AACo commissioned Livingstone Beef, a state of the art beef processing plant south of Darwin. It is currently being held in a suspended state.
Today, AACo is focused on the production of premium beef products for export and domestic consumption. Our beef feeds more than 1,000,000 people throughout the world every day.
At AACo, we are an equal opportunity employer committed to building a team from a range of backgrounds, skills, talents, and aspirations with strong work ethics.
We promote an inclusive workplace that embraces diversity as part of our culture. This involves providing supportive and inclusive diversity-related workplace policies, programs and practices within our business.
At AACo we offer a range of opportunities across our stations, feedlots and farms, as well as within our corporate office.
We challenge our people to apply their skills, education and insight to help improve company performance, while our long history of commitment to development provides a passport to a range of employment, career and personal development opportunities.
We are always looking for the right people all year round, however our major recruitment intake occurs from October for commencement early the following year.
Applicants may be eligible if they can meet the following criteria:
Register and apply online at AACo Careers for one of our advertised positions.
You will need an active email address for your username and a secure password that you can remember easily.
You will be required to complete an application form, provide references and upload a current CV or Resume. Your details will be stored and matched to any future opportunities that may arise.
We prefer that candidates apply online at AACo Careers to enable your details to be electronically stored and tracked.
You can also liaise with us by calling (+61) 07 3368 4000 or through email hr@aaco.com.au.
Our job opportunities are open to anyone who is eligible and can demonstrate the required skills and experience for the specific role.
AACo will not accept responsibility for any fees related to unsolicited applications from recruitment suppliers.
After you submit your online application, your details will be reviewed in relation to the specific requirements of the role.
Shortlisted candidates will be contacted and next steps confirmed.
Each selection process is different however candidates can expect some of the following to occur depending on the position:
We receive a large number of applications and are only able to respond individually to shortlisted candidates.
However, if you would like feedback on your application, please contact us on (+61) 07 3368 4000 or through email hr@aaco.com.au.
Here at AACo, we’re trailblazers; doing things differently, and taking the reins. We have great people all over the country working towards producing the world’s finest beef, and we’re always on the lookout for great talent. Here’s what you can expect on your journey with AACo,
Why would you want to work anywhere else?
So you might call yourself a jackaroo, jillaroo, accountant, business analyst, head stockperson, sales manager, farmer, innovator, project manager, mechanic, operations manager.
But we just call you part of the team. So make it happen.
AACo offers industry competitive remuneration to enable us to attract and retain the best people. We are committed to performance and behaviour-based rewards.
Your remuneration will depend on your position, the business you work in and the location.
AACo offers a vast range of benefits for our people, which vary depending on the site.
The benefits we offer include:
At AACo we offer our people a career, not just a job.
We have an extensive onboarding and training program which provides the best possible foundation for our people and helps them achieve both their personal and professional goals. Additionally, structured development programs are in place to support learning objectives.
Our multifaceted company enables our people to work across a variety of operations and to develop specialist skills as well a broad understanding of our business.
We provide opportunities to build a rewarding, progressive career and to be a leader in our exciting and dynamic industry.
We are aiming high, with bold ambitions that shape agriculture to meet the needs of a changing world, protect and respect the foundation of nature and help our communities thrive.
We have set five priority commitments in climate action, regenerating nature and animal health & welfare as a first step in bringing our strategy to life. These priority commitments along with our extended commitments signal a broader program to come for tackling the material issues for our business and our ambition for sustainability at AACo.
Carbon sequestration in the landscape presents one of our most significant opportunities to contribute to the solution for global warming, participate in carbon markets as an alternate revenue stream, increase our productivity, and improve our financial resilience to drought and climate change.
Our Commitment
Together with our partners Food Agility, Cibo Labs, Mullion Group and Carbon Link, we will develop an industry leading method for measuring, managing and forecasting soil carbon sequestration by satellite that will bring down the cost barrier for participation in soil carbon markets. We will extend this method to model the carbon flow through our estate by incorporating carbon sequestration in vegetation and overlaying our methane emissions from cattle, for the first time demonstrating the biogenic carbon cycle in action.
We are stewards of vast tracts of land in the Northern Australian landscape. Enhancing natural capital makes sense commercially as well as being a key opportunity to play our part in addressing the global biodiversity decline.
Our Commitment
We are working alongside Accounting for Nature to develop a certifiable scientific framework to measure and report on the condition of natural capital, including biodiversity, across AACo’s land assets by 2023. We will apply that framework to baseline priority assets by 2024.
We recognise our responsibility to mitigate our climate impact and to produce food in a way that benefits future generations. Methane emissions represent a significant component of our current operational footprint – addressing them is a key component of our Climate Action. We have been focused on reducing our emissions intensity for several years and are now working towards tackling our methane emissions head on.
Our Commitment
We are working with Sea Forest, Meat and Livestock Australia, the University of New England and the University of Queensland. Together we are committing to fast tracking the development of Asparagopsis as a feed additive for commercial application to the reduction of methane emissions from long-fed cattle in feedlots. This is the first step in taking this ground-breaking science from research to real world application at scale. We are looking to the future where we will continue to overcome technical challenges and extend the application of this technology across our entire herd.
Certification opens markets, commands price premiums and provides a framework to drive improvement in performance. There is a gap in certification for Animal Health and Welfare in northern Australian rangelands
Our Commitment
We will pursue our commitment to the Five Domains of Animal Wellbeing by working with key industry partners to develop an internationally recognised AHW certification standard for extensive beef production by 2024. This certification standard will provide a structure to drive innovation and improvement in the already high AHW standards and practices of our industry in northern Australia.
Developing and nurturing agricultural innovation is vital to the long-term sustainability of our industry. Faced with multiple challenges including drought, climate variability, biosecurity, global competition and consumer preferences our industry needs new practices that can be implemented at speed and scale more than ever.
Our Commitment
We will establish ‘The Wylarah Institute’ with the objective of driving the rapid adoption and commercialisation of innovative science and practices in the agricultural industry. The institute will initially focus on two key areas: Reimagining Agriculture to meet the needs of a changing world and Valuing Nature to protect the foundation of nature for a better tomorrow.