The owner of a major Australian packaging company has been inspired by his whip-cracking grandson to invest in cattle and start his own pastoral company.
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John Winson had spent all of his life in the corporate world, building Brisbane-based business Signet from the ground up with his brother Bob since 1968.
However, struck by his grandson John's enthusiasm and wanting a change, he and his wife Tina took the plunge and bought 240 hectares at Bellthorpe five years ago.
"Johnny started cracking whips when he was about six and he went on to have a keen interest in anything to do with horses or cattle," Mr Winson said.
"At school, he went into cattle judging, which all of his brothers have gotten involved in as well.
"It was his enthusiasm that we all fed off."
After settling in at Bellthorpe, they decided to build a herd of Belmont Red and Senepol cattle.
"We wanted to start with something, so we selected the Belmont Reds because of their pest resistance," he said.
Looking to branch out, they bought 200ha at Kilcoy and 1600ha on Somerset Dam, and with that, Somerset Pastoral Co was born.
They currently have about 300 breeders and looking to build up their numbers before cementing a marketing strategy.
"Our first aim is to get a breeding herd of about 500 and then go from there," Mr Winson said.
"We'll continue selling off the males until we work out a proper plan of what we're going to produce and where our market will be.
"At the moment, all the money is flowing outwards because we've got nothing really to sell.
"Our main concern is just to improve the genetics and develop a breeding herd."
The 76-year-old said there were certainly a lot of challenges when just starting out.
"It's never ending. The more we learn, the more we learn we have to do," he said.
"We're coming from a position well behind everybody else, but we do recognise we've got to somehow improve our pastures and we'd like to do more rotational grazing, but then we've got to work the water out.
"I'm sure it's the same problem that everybody else has.
"I'd say the only benefit that we may have is we come to it knowing nothing, but we also don't have to unlearn anything.
"We're prepared to make mistakes because we know that we'll learn from mistakes."
Mr Winson said he was happy to take advice from a couple of cattlemen in the district and then bring that back to the family table.
"We've found that there's quite a variation in viewpoints on various subjects and then, when you read up on modern ideas, that's another direction again, so we're drawing from all of those areas and then between us, we work out what we're going to do," he said.
"I don't think we have any opinions that we necessarily would push too hard because we know that we don't know too much."
Their son Jack - CEO of Signet - is taking a keen interest, as is their daughter Sandra.
And now they have their grandson back from out west, the future is looking bright for Somerset Pastoral.
"Johnny's been out west on AACo Dalgonally Station for two years and he's just returned to do his agricultural degree," Mr Winson said.
"He's the future.
"We're not a well established grazing family, but maybe one day with a bit of luck we might be."
Brandon Long
Brandon Long is a Queensland Country Life journalist based in Toowoomba.
Brandon Long is a Queensland Country Life journalist based in Toowoomba.
