FURTHER details have emerged about the development of a boning room, cold storage and distribution facility to be built in China under a joint venture involving Inverell’s Bindaree Beef Group and its Chinese partner, Shandong Delisi Food.

Bindaree’s ‘head’ company, Yolarno Pty Ltd and Shandong Delisi will apparently spend between A$20 million and A$30 million on a modern facility in the shipping port city of Qingdao, north-eastern China. Chinese media speculation that the investment might cost as much as US$46m (A$64m) is inaccurate, sources at Bindaree told Beef Central.

Beef Central originally wrote about the proposed project in this article published in September.

The deal will provide a “win-win” scenario for both parties, local trade media reported.

The Qingdao site will house a deboning facility to handle Australian quarter beef produced out of Bindaree’s Inverell beef processing facility in northern NSW, together with cold storage infrastructure, value-adding room, innovative workstations, an office block and improved transportation facilities. The new site will apparently cover a floor area of 60,000sq m.

No start date has been set for the construction, but once the site is up and running, it would improve global logistics, help to streamline exports of beef out of Australia, and ultimately, provide Shandong Delisi Food and Yolarno with a ‘stable source of income.’

The investment would help both companies promote their full range of frozen meat products in China, Shandong Delisi said. It would also bolster competitiveness in nearby markets like Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Russia and Central Asia.

Last year Yolarno (Bindaree) produced around 58,000 tonnes of beef and 6000t of by-product, the Chinese source said.

Shandong Delisi Foods is a relatively new player in China. Founded in 2003, the company produces and distributes a range of frozen meat products. Last year it recorded revenue growth of 2.58 percent, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Bindaree Beef Group has recently appointed Eric Pan, a Chinese national, as general manager of the company’s China operations. He will be based in Shanghai, but may ultimately relocate to the new facility at Qingdao.