Casing producer fills French order

Bunbury-based sausage casing producer Bunbury Casing Works has struck a deal with a French company to sell its semi-processed sausage casings (green runners) into Europe.

French company Charles Freres has agreed to buy about one million green runners from BCW for 12 months.

The green runners, made from sheep and lamb intestines, will be shipped to Morocco for processing into clean white casings before being transported to France and Europe.

The deal, said to be worth about $3 million a year, means that BCW – the largest casing producer in WA – will redirect its total annual exports from China to Morocco.

Through its Sydney-based broker, BCW currently exports about 70 per cent of its total annual production of between 900,000 and one million green runners to China, where they are processed into white runners and sold to European sausage manufacturers.

BCW owner John Staley said the deal was significant in that Charles Freres was a well-known company in Europe that had been established since 1828.

“It looked like a good scenario on paper,” he said. “It was a little better [price] than what we were getting in China.”

But the agreement was only for 12 months, he said, and China could be back on the cards if the price was right.

BCW is a wholly owned subsidiary of Staley Holdings, the private company of Mr Staley and his wife, Elizabeth.

BCW has supply contracts with most of Western Australia’s abattoirs and is the biggest local player, controlling about half of the domestic sausage casing market.

A diversified company, Staley Holdings also owns Bunbury-based boutique winery Amarok Estate, which exports to Singapore and Japan, as well as established South West food and packaging business Staley Food and Packaging.