The state government is sounding out abattoirs to support South West farmers who will lose the service of the last big processor they could access locally.
The state government is sounding out abattoir operators to support South West farm-to-table businesses which will next month lose the service of the last big processor they could access locally.
Westpork-backed Dardanup Butchering Company last week gave small farmers four weeks’ notice it would cease custom kills, the final major processor in the region to do so.
That decision followed Craig Mostyn Group’s call earlier in the year to reduce the small-custom-kill service at its V&V Walsh abattoir in Bunbury.
Custom killing – also known as contract or service kills – is a service whereby farmers can pay an abattoir to process their livestock and then return it, ensuring the farmer retains ownership for their own business purposes.
Both decisions are understood to have been made due to capacity constraints and complications with the production lines for their own value-add products.
Agriculture and Food Minister Jackie Jarvis said the state had asked DBC if short-term state government support was required.
“They advised that this was a commercial decision,” she said.
“We are working hard to find alternative abattoirs with capacity and the Western Australian Meat Industry Authority can provide advice to producers.
“A number of abattoirs, including DBC, have successfully applied for state government support for expansion through Regional Economic Development and Value Add Investment grant programs.”
Ms Jarvis said WAMIA was ready to support any new abattoir looking to enter the market.
Several small farmers impacted by DBC’s decision have reached out to abattoirs in Corrigin, Keysbrook and Gingin. However, logistics costs to these sites would be substantially higher, and capacity is also an issue.
Opposition leader Shane Love said similar concerns were growing in the Mid West and Chittering Valley, where local processors had also scaled back custom-kill services.
“It is becoming an issue, and it's a concern to producers right across the state,” he said.
“We don't want to see all of our agricultural product just turn into a vast commodity.”
Mr Love said industrial relations, migration, and regulatory reform should be considered to assist the industry.
“It has been a problem for many years that many West Australians don’t particularly favour working in those types of environments,” he said.
“In terms of the smaller producers, perhaps there could be ways that we could look at some of the regulations around the operation of meat inspection, etcetera, which would be more flexible and enable other methods to be used for them to be able to achieve that service.”
Dardanup Butchering Company last year received $750,000 from the state government to increase its processing capacity.
The news comes as the federal government leans on boxed meat as the future for WA’s sheep industry once its live export ban comes into effect in 2028.
Four big WA abattoirs are currently mothballed: Kimberley Meat Company near Broome; a goat and lamb processing plant in Carnarvon; the former Clover Meats facility in Waroona; and Minerva Foods’ abattoir in Esperance.
Canadian investment firm AIMCo is closing in on a deal to buy the Kimberley Meat Company, while the Waroona facility was purchased last year for $2.2 million.
Brazil-based Minerva has not answered two months’ worth of questions from Business News about the future of the Esperance plant, which it closed last year.
The old Goodchilds Abattoir in Australind was bought by Western Meat Packers Group in 2022, at which time it mooted a two-year rebuild to get the facility running again.
