Marblelution – Europe’s largest Wagyu farm uses Weidemann.

Wagyu cattle are undisputedly the most valuable beef cattle in the world.

Many farmers across Europe has recognised this and have connected with the Marblelution system – an animal husbandry system, which prescribes responsible, sustainable, regional and appreciative breeding, fattening and commercialisation of Wagyu cattle. With over 4,500 beef cattle, alongside over 60 partners, Marblelution is the largest Wagyu breeder in Europe and through its self-contained system ensures the maintenance of husbandry standards, which are far beyond the statutory provisions.

The company name Marblelution is made up of Marble (for heavily marbled beef with a high and high-quality intramuscular fat content) and Lution (from Revolution, which is meant to characterise the revolutionary style of husbandry and commercialisation). The story began in 2015 with two very different business ideas. While Sebastian Röttcher and Tobias Becker recognised the demand for high-quality and sustainable beef and founded a commercialization platform for beef from the breeds Rotes Höhenvieh, Aberdeen, Angus, etc. with their company Genusswert, parallel to this Tobias and Robert Becker accidentally came across the Wagyu beef cattle. They bought ten Wagyu embryos, which they implanted into the Angus heifers.

Two heifers then came of the fine cattle breed and founded Wagyu Thuringia. The brothers immediately produced embryos themselves, which they delivered from carrier cows. At the same time in South Tyrol, Stefan Rottensteiner took over his parents’ company, likewise specialised in Wagyu cattle and founded the brand Wagyu Südtirol. In 2016, the agricultural cooperative in Haina (Thuringia) gave up milk production and the Becker brothers rented one of the numerous stables. They began their ambitious breeding programme with 28 animals. The Genusswert company took over distribution. At this time, the founders also then had to deal with the technical furnishing of their new operation.

5,000 hours without downtime.

They engaged with the Weidemann distributor, HFT, on an equal footing: the distributor was not only able to present the technology, but they were also able to support with the financial solution. Thus, in 2018, the business in Haina acquired their first Weidemann, a Hoftrac 1260. “Our sales advisor, Mario Schott, warned us that the machine would be far too small for what we intended,” remembers Robert Becker laughing, “but we weren’t able to afford anything bigger.” To date the machine has performed over 5,000 hours and has not broken down a single time. With a stock size of 300 animals, the Weidemann 1260 was the only machine in the stables responsible for feeding, mucking out and spreading the bedding. Additional breeding animals followed and the breeding programme developed, the company therefore grew quickly and other stables on the plant were leased. The mutual vision of the four, young men, to become Europe’s larger fine meat producers, finally led to the founding of Marblelution in 2018 with the two business fields: commercialisation and breeding.

Fairer and more open handling with partners and suppliers.

In the meantime around 1,000 animals are kept at the former agricultural cooperative. Since 2018, the stable work is no longer fulfilled by just the Hoftrac 1260; however, it is supported by a Weidemann telescopic wheel loader 2080T. “The partnership with HFT always worked well. We pursue our fair and open business programme not only in the breeding and commercialisation, but also in the relationship with our suppliers,” says Robert Becker, “as a result, HFT is our supplier for all technology that we have on the yard. Our communication has secured the good collaboration at all times. That way, all parties known where they stand and we can rely on one another 100%.” Together with the 60 plus partner operations, Marblelution has around 4,500 Wagyu cattle in breeding today, with a growing tendency. The partners are frequently farmers who are no longer able to live from the conventional agriculture. They buy the breeding animals from Marblelution and rear their calves in suckler cow husbandry. Marblelution provides a 100% purchase guarantee for the animals produced if the partner business adheres to the ambitious husbandry conditions surrounding animal well-bring, sustainability and environmental protection. Included herein are pasture grazing, stable housing in the winter exclusively on straw, no corn and soya in the feed, etc. These rules are monitored regularly by the employees. Commercialisation is to specialised retail and wholesale, and the upscale restaurant trade throughout Europe.