Thirty-one bull breeders from the United Kingdom and the United States made a brief tour of New Zealand last week following the Simmental World Congress held in Melbourne a week earlier.
The Simmental breeders visited the Otago studs of David Keown at Lone Pine, Raes Junction, and Gary and Julene McCorkindale's Glenside Simmentals at Waitahuna.
President of British Simmental Society Hector Macaskill said he was impressed with what he had seen of New Zealand.
"The scale of the farms is catching everyone's imagination," he said from a ridge on the McCorkindale property.
Mr Macaskill described New Zealand cattle as very functional and commercial, which reflected New Zealand's extensive farming system.
"In the United Kingdom, our cattle are very commercial too, but they are smaller fields and smaller farms," he said.
Mr Macaskill's Woodhall herd consists of 80 Simmental cows near Dunbar in southeast Scotland and the society has 1000 members with herds which produce between 6500 and 7000 calves a year.
The visitors came from Scotland, England, Ireland and the United States and while in New Zealand they also visited Nelson, the Hawkes Bay and Wanganui.