AUSTRALIA – In a bid to boost its processing capacity by 60 percent, Kimberley Meat Company (KMC) is set to invest US$35 million to expand Northern Western Australia’s (WA) only major abattoir.
The expansion investment comes just six months after the meat processor reopened the facility, following its closure in 2020 due to record-high cattle prices, supply shortages, and seasonally low US beef trim prices — where about 50 percent of KMC’s ground beef is exported each year.
As part of the expansion, the KMC abattoir — owned by Yeeda Pastoral Company — will extend its boning room, cold storage capacity, and yard size and add a rendering plant to the facility.
The investment will also help the supplier of free-range beef to achieve its intention of opening a butcher shop in Broome.
The planned expansion, according to KMC, will allow the facility to increase its annual throughput to 85,000 head of cattle with a daily processing increase from 250 to 400 animals next year.
The meat processor is also confident that the multi-million-dollar investment and a new approach would give the facility longevity.
The abattoir has had a tumultuous ride in the years since its inception in 2016, with an 18-month closure and an unsuccessful attempt to restructure into a cooperative.
KMC chief executive David Larkin said the development would allow pastoralists to sell feeder cattle to the facility rather than just heavier slaughter cattle.
“There are a lot of good feeder cattle that are produced in the Kimberley and we think we can add value to those, increase our numbers and give the producers another option other than live export,” he added.
The Western Australian pastoral has welcomed the investment saying it would relieve them of the cost of transporting cattle thousands of kilometers to WA’s south for processing.
David Stoate, who runs Anna Plains station about 250km south of Broome, said producers in the north would love to see extra capacity and that basically means more marketing options for everyone up here.
Live exports slowed dramatically this year due to high Australian cattle prices and the spread of foot and mouth and lumpy skin diseases in the region’s main market, Indonesia.
Moreover, this year’s total export volumes out of the Kimberley are expected to be about 30 percent lower than in 2021 with about 99,000 head of cattle shipped from Broome and Wyndham ports.
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