Patties being manufactured at Tyson’s Coominya facility west of Brisbane – coming under KGF control from Monday

QUEENSLAND-based beef processor, value-adder and exporter Kilcoy Global Foods has bought Tyson Foods’ Coominya beef pattie manufacturing plant west of Brisbane.

Coominya is one of Australia’s largest dedicated beef pattie manufacturing sites, producing enormous volumes of frozen patties for international and domestic end-users, including major customer like McDonalds. Patties are exported to Japan, Korea and throughout Asia as well as for use in the domestic quick-service restaurant sector, cafes and retail chains. The plant is supplied with raw material by a network of large export-orient ed beef processors across southern Queensland.

US beef giant Tyson Foods bought the Coominya pattie plant business six or seven years ago from another US company, Keystone Foods. Some thought Tyson’s move on Coominya might signal an investment in other Australian meat processing assets, but the Coominya business remains Tyson’s sole Australian meat industry asset.

Tyson is said to be consolidating some of its offshore assets, hence its decision to offload the Coominya business.

A Kilcoy Global Foods contact was unavailable for comment this afternoon, but observers told Beef Central that given the volume of beef the company now produces (Kilcoy plant near Brisbane, Lance Creek in Victoria and the former Hardwicks plant near Kyneton in Victoria) it makes sense to have a guaranteed, secure outlet for fresh trimmings, as well as relieving some pressure on refrigeration space for boxed trimmings.

Kilcoy Global Foods has recently invested heavily in further-processing and value-adding business, building a new stand-alone production facility near Caboolture, not far from the company’s Kilcoy grainfed beef plant. Among a wide range of value-added products, the new facility already produces large volumes of chilled and frozen single-serve grainfed beef patties, under its Few & Far label.

In a brief joint statement to suppliers, Tyson and Kilcoy Global Foods said KGF would take over the business from next Monday, October 28.

“The Coominya operation will continue to provide the highest level of service to our customers through this transition period,” the joint statement said.

“Both parties are working together to ensure a smooth transition of ownership. As it is the entities comprising the Coominya Operation that are being sold, all existing contracts and business operations will continue, unaffected.”

McDonald’s US court action

In the United States, Tyson is one of nine large US beef packers along with JBS and Cargill that McDonald’s is suing over claims of fixing grinding meat prices at artificially high levels, in what the complainants said was a conspiracy that violated federal US anti-trust laws.

The burger giant claimed the beef suppliers agreed to manipulate and fix prices at “supra-competitive levels,’ according to the suit filed in early October in the US Eastern District of New York.

The US manufacturing beef suppliers had been conspiring since 2015 to fix beef prices, McDonald’s’ suit claimed.

“Defendants and their co-conspirators implemented their conspiracy by collusively reducing the slaughter-ready cattle and beef supply, which over time artificially elevated the price of beef that they sold to the Plaintiff and others,” McDonald’s said in the suit.

The fast-food chain is seeking three times the damages it sustained as a result of the artificially inflated prices, reasonable attorneys’ fees and pre-judgement and post-judgement interest.