Nearly 4800 tonnes of lamb and beef cuts from more than 150,000 beasts left our shores bound for China last financial year. This is an increase of 1500 per cent from the mid-1990s when just 300 tonnes were exported.

Lured by the prospect of even greater growth to come, top Sydney supplier Vic's Premium Quality Meat has opened in Shanghai.

Australian meat is found in many of Shanghai's world-class restaurants, which have opened during the frenzied growth of the past decade. Among them are Laris, with its gleaming white marble interior, and M on the Bund owned by Australian Michelle Garnaut - the first of the new wave of foreign restaurants on the famous strip along the Huangpu River.

In Beijing, Australian meat is the choice of the four- and five-star hotels sprouting as fast as the old hutong neighbourhoods are being demolished.

By tackling illegal meat smugglers and often primitive cold storage and transportation, at least five Australian companies are reaping rich rewards for several decades of intensive groundwork. The trade is aided by the Chinese embargo on meat imports from the US.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald