Australian Meat Group’s Cootamundra processing site during construction

SUBSTANTIAL increases in beef processing capacity in Victoria, South Australia, and southern regions of NSW are contributing strongly to this year’s expanding nation kill, currently sitting at around 140,000 head a week.

Recent weekly slaughter statistics have supported the view that a disproportionate share of this year’s increasing national throughput is coming out of southern states

Victoria’s throughput last week, for example, was up 60pc compared with the same week last year, representing an additional 8400 head per week. The two weeks prior to that were up 43pc and 59pc, respectively, on the same weeks a year earlier.

The trend is somewhat more erratic in South Australia, but kills for the week ended 5 July were still up 51pc on the same week last year.

In contrast, Queensland processing expansion compared with a year ago has been much more modest. The past three weeks have seen numbers processed up +14pc, +17pc and +15pc on this time last year. Nevertheless, Queensland still accounts for around 45pc of the national weekly kill.

As today’s weekly kill report suggests, southern processor cattle buyers are struggling to find adequate numbers at home, and are buying Queensland and even Northern Territory cattle in record numbers currently to supplement their kills.

Beef Central published this article in May last year. speculating about the prospect of the increased southern processing capacity pulling more northern cattle south.

One large multi-site, multi-state processor livestock manager believes the active presence of southern processors in northern parts of the country may now move from a seasonal ‘opportunistic’ occurance, to something more permanent.

There have been at least six large beef processing upgrades/refurbishments/rebuildings/repurposing projects that have unfolded in a region stretching from the eastern part of South Australia, through Victoria, and southern regions of NSW since early last year. Some are completed; others have finished their first stages in a multi-stage process; and others are still a little way off.

One of the points several contacts made was that this is not all necessarily ‘new business.’ Quite a few are plants that have not operated for some years, either because of low southern livestock supply, poor trading conditions, fire damage or other reasons.

But even if some of the capacity listed below is simply ‘restoring’ what existed in southern Australia previously, other parts of it is capacity that was not previously there.

Here’s a quick summary of the current state of play:

AMG Cootamundra

Australian Meat Group has commissioned its dramatically upgraded Cootamundra abattoir on the NSW southwest slopes. Coota is currently processing around 500 head per day, since being commissioned earlier this year. The aim is to grow to 1000/day or 5000/week, but that is still some way off.

Cootamundra (pre expansion) was still a substantial processor in southern NSW, before its closure back in 2018. When it reaches full production, the facility is designed to process up to 1000 head per day, in two shifts. Prior to its closure back in 2017 Cootamundra typically processed only around 200-250 head a day.

TFI Murray Bridge

Thomas Foods International is gradually increasing kills at its re-built Murray Bridge plant in South Australia’s southeastern corner, reconstructed after the original plant was burnt down in 2018. The plant is presently doing around 600/day, at stage one capacity. The master plan is to move to 1200/day. TFI continues to kill around 1000/day grainfeds per day under contract across the border, at O’Connors Pakenham. An earlier TFI company statement suggested future daily beef capacity as high as 1400 head.

Bindaree Monbeef

Northern NSW beef processor Bindaree Food Group last year bought the mothballed Monbeef processing plant near Cooma in the state’s south. Monbeef is a small-scale hot-boning export plant processing around 150-180 head per day. Most of the kill is made up of dairy and beef cows plus bulls, primarily producing frozen manufacturing beef. The plant is modern, by Australian processing standards, having been built only in 1998. It (along with several others) closed in 2020, due to the sustained market pressures and financial losses being experienced by processors at the time. Bindaree intends to increase production, initially to full single shift capacity processing about 1100 head per week, but is understood to be well short of that target at this stage.

Greenham Tongala

HW Greenham last year completed a major refurbishment of its Tongala processing plant in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley. While the expansion is principally about quality – shifting from a hot-boning-only configuration to both chilled and hot boning – the project also includes some expansion in capacity. Numbers will expand from the previous 700 hot-boned chopper cows to about 1050 head daily, the majority of which will be quality beef boned in chilled form.

Elsewhere, EC Throsby has substantially improved the former Hilltop Meats hot-boning processing site at Young, in NSW southwestern slopes region, which it bought in 2020.

One contact involved in one of the projects listed above made the point that the various companies are not all be chasing the same type of cattle.

“Some are looking to build grainfed programs, others will focus on hot-boned manufacturing beef, and others more higher quality grass steers,” he said.

“And many are still nowhere near what they were processing four years,” the contact said. “And it won’t change overnight, because of the labour issues. Any growth will be slow, and steady.”