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The five-year-old, 1,050kg cow named Gouache, bred by farmer Jean-Jacques Bros in the heart of the Limousin region, was sold at a special auction on Monday.
At €23,500, she broke the French record for a cow previously established at the Paris Agricultural Show in 2013.
Despite her record price, Gouache will not be used for breeding. Buyer Denis Hutin, shown by France 3 television raising his arms in victory and taking a sip of champagne as the hammer fell, is a butcher.
“It is madness, but it is for the pleasure of serving good meat to my customers,” he told the TV channel, adding that he had come to the sale with a plan to buy this particular cow.
Watch the TV report (in French) below:
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