Yarralinka Feedlot, SA

A South Australian feedlot previously part-owned by a Singaporean company with a grand vision to live export grainfed cattle to China for slaughter, has been placed on the market.

In 2018 Singapore’s Yarra Corporation joined forces with South Australian stockfeed company JT Johnson & Sons to purchase Adelaide Plains feedlot near Dublin, with the yard later renamed Yarralinka.

The joint venture planned to feed cattle, then export them live to China to process in Yarra Corp’s abattoirs.

Yarra Corp’s website still states:

“In partnership with JT Johnson & Sons, Yarralinka Livestock Co is a feedlot that provides consistent, high quality supply of beef cattle for the Chinese live export market as well as other export markets. Yarralinka feeds cattle domestic supermarket beef as well as for export.”

Beef Central has confirmed that no livestock were live exported to China under the program, despite Yarra Corp having its own live export arm, having bought a controlling stake in the South East Asian Livestock Services (SEALS) in 2017.

The company’s plans to live export to China slowly dissipated, with SEALS voluntarily surrendering its export license in 2023 and Yarra Corp selling more and more of its shares in the feedlot to local joint venture partners JT Johnson & Sons, who took over complete ownership of Yarralinka this year.

JT Johnson & Sons now have the feedlot on the market, to focus their attention on their stock feed business.

The price guide for Yarralinka is $13 million said Toop + Toop rural property agent, Sam Hayes.

“The feedlot is located 60km north of Adelaide and 5km from the South Australian Livestock Exchange and features a blend of traditional open pens and modern covered facilities,” he said

“It is currently operating under a custom feeding model for different customers. It is licensed for 10,500 SCU and is currently developed to 8911 SCU.

“We have already had interest from overseas which is understandable given the EU accreditation and NFAS compliance and the feedlot is quite well placed for export-focused vertical integration.”

Since purchasing the Dublin feedlot, Yarra Corp and Johnson’s invested more than $10 million in improvements including:

• 420m x 30m Entegra permanent shedding, which supports about 1600 SCU under covered conditions.
• Establishment of 99 pens with more than 90pc offering shade coverage.
• Installation of 1.4 million litres of water storage, a bore and desalination plant (200,000L/day capacity), and reverse osmosis system.
• Upgrades to cattle handling facilities, including a crush, 6-way draft, NLIS readers, hospital pens, and undercover yards.
• Development of an R&D site with two pens.
• Construction of a 30m x 30m commodity shed with concrete flooring for feed storage.
• Environmental upgrades, including effluent management ponds and EPA-compliant systems

While there is no feedmill on site (joint venture partner JT Johnson & Sons provided mixed ration from its nearby stockfeed plant), there is a 30m x 30m commodity shed with concrete flooring and potential for a feed mill with a new feed shed recently erected.

Feedlot value

Beef Central spoke to one rural valuer who said there had been very few sales of established feedlots in recent years and with the cost to build one nearly doubling, if not more, expansions of existing facilities had started to slow. Beef Central discussed feedlot values in this earlier report.