SUPPLY chain logistics challenges brought on by wet weather across eastern parts of Queensland and New South Wales over the past week has forced JBS Australia to suspend processing operations at the company’s flagship Dinmore plant in southeast Queensland until after Easter.

The plant advised staff and suppliers this afternoon of the suspension in operations.

Falls of 100-150mm were common over the past seven days in coastal areas, with plenty of interior cattle country receiving falls of 75mm or more (see yesterday’s weekly rainfall wrap).

Australia’s largest abattoir, Dinmore at full cry can kill up to 3400 head per day, but like all beef processors across eastern and southern Australia, has struggled desperately for numbers over the past six months, due to the effects of two years of drought-driven herd reduction followed by the start of rebuilding.

The company stressed that the upcoming closure was entirely driven by supply challenges around sourcing cattle due to the rain event, due to water-laden paddocks, road damage and other issues. This particular closure was not related to underlying profitability issues in processing, the company told Beef Central.

A spokesman said in most cases the cattle were already ‘bought,’ but could not be physically extracted from the paddock or property, and sent for slaughter.

Typically during times of significant and prolonged rain, processors will offer ‘wet weather money’ as an inducement to beef producers to find ways to complete a delivery, but the current desperate lack of profitability in processing meant that was impossible in the latest event.

“There is no point in losing even more money that what we currently are,” a processor contact said on Tuesday.

Dinmore will shut after Friday’s kill this week, and will not re-open until Wednesday, 7 April, following Easter. With holiday days excluded, the plant will miss five working days, spread across an 11-day closure period.

The company said at this stage, no other JBS plants would be affected.

A number of other large processors, including Teys Lakes Creek near Rockhampton, have dropped days this week. Large northern NSW export processor Bindaree Beef is shut for almost three weeks, not scheduled to re-open until 16 April, and NH Foods’ Wingham Beef Exports plant in the NSW Manning Valley is shut all this week, at least, due to localised flooding. See Beef Central’s weekly kill report published on Tuesday for more plant operations details.

Given the backlog of meat that currently exists in the system, closures like this will take some pressure off the supply chain, Beef Central was told. Next week’s eastern states kill will be restricted to four days due to Easter, and the same will apply the week after.

In physical markets both Tuesday’s Roma store sale and Wednesday’s Dalby sale saw dramatic declines in numbers offered, due to rain. Roma sale yarded just 1937 head – about one third of offerings seen just two weeks ago.