Pardoo to build cattle feedlot

A Pilbara cattle station will build a 10,000-head feedlot in a move it expects to bolster the region’s status as a global premium boxed Wagyu beef supplier.

Pardoo Station on Friday gained approval from the Shire of East Pilbara to build its feedlot on the station 150 kilometres east of Port Hedland.

Pardoo plans to build the 28-hectare facility in two stages and, once complete, will be capable of handling 14,705 350-kilogram-class weaners.

The station this year became the first in Western Australia to gain European Union accreditation which has allowed its boxed wagyu beef to enter European and UK markets, on top of its existing exports to the Middle East and Asia.

By 2031, Pardoo hopes to be turning off 100,000 Wagyu cattle every year.

Pardoo chief executive Grant Rockman said benefits of the feedlot would flow to the broader Pilbara and Kimberley cattle industry.

“The feedlot approval by the Shire of East Pilbara will allow Pardoo Wagyu to continue along its planned growth and genetic improvement trajectory to be a world class wagyu producer, based in northwest Western Australia,” he said.

“The pristine location that we work tirelessly to protect provides the unique taste and flavour that Pardoo Wagyu is renowned for.

“The approval was granted well within our planned timelines whilst allowing for all the regulatory requirements to be met and we applaud the efficiency which qualified the whole process.”

Mr Rockman said quality, productivity, and animal welfare would be improved by the feedlot.

That would occur due to the facility’s ability to effectively drought-proof the herd, minimize disease, and improve predictability of turnout weights.

Development of the feedlot was spurred by a direct hit from the category five Cyclone Isla in April last year which caused extensive damage to Pardoo’s infrastructure.

Since that impact, Pardoo has been operating with temporary feed facilities.

“While the site currently operates in a temporary manner, it has brought about the opportunity to re-develop the site while damaged infrastructure is replaced,” Mr Rockman said.

“The primary purpose of the Feedlot Facility is to aid our heifer weaners to maintain ideal body condition, in the same environment that they will breed in, before they are joined with elite full blood Wagyu bulls.”

The feedlot is expected to double employment and double truck movements to 372 return trips per year, mainly carting cattle and fodder.

The 200,000-hectare station was bought by Singaporean businessman Bruce Cheung in 2015 for $13.5 million.

Mr Cheung has since garnered influence in WA’s political and business circles through relationships with the likes of former WA Nationals leader Brendon Grylls and former regional development minister Alannah MacTiernan.

His company, Pardoo Wagyu has expanded its asset base with acquisitions through deals with traditional owners of Yarrangi (Leopold Downs), Yuwa and Mowanjum stations in the Kimberley in 2021, and purchase of two farms in the Avon Valley.

The company is part of a $200 million investment plan alongside other pastoral interests in the area to turn the Pilbara into a global Wagyu beef supplier fed using 6,000 hectares of irrigated crops fed by groundwater.

Pardoo expects this investment to create about 1,900 jobs and $3 billion in economic contribution to the state, and underpin an abattoir and cold storage in the north, which has been somewhat problematic to date.

Some of the company’s meat is processed by Craig Mostyn Group’s V&V Walsh in Bunbury and it has ties to Queensland-based Hughes Pastoral Group, which has some 3.2 million hectares of land, and Japanese Wagyu royalty; Takeda Farms.

Cattle aside, Pardoo Station runs a small tourism operation, and extensive centre pivot irrigation fields which will benefit from manure collected in the feedlot.

Doing so will create a closed loop system, where food is grown for the feedlot, and waste from the feedlot is then used to improve soil productivity.