Chinese Investors Likely to Sign off on Northern Abattoir Project if Region can Prove Cattle Supply
Xinning Wang and Miao Wang from DSCY Investments met with North Beef chair Rob
Atkinson, Flinders Shire mayor Gregory Jones and local graziers to discuss the
community's meatworks proposal in Hughenden this week.
Hughenden wants to be the first town in Queensland to build a new competitive processing facility to kill and quarter cattle for consumers in China.
A meatworks in Hughenden would need to process 180,000 cattle a year to stay profitable.
Under a memorandum of understanding with Chinese company DSCY Investments, Queensland lobby group North Beef must guarantee it can consistently source stock before an agreement is formalised.
Meat and Livestock Australia has predicted low herd numbers in Queensland will linger for another two years, and established east coast processors are already struggling to find enough stock to turn a profit.
North Beef chair Rob Atkinson said a new abattoir would not be built for a number of years, and was hopeful supply will recover by then.
"This plant won't open its doors for three years so we need to stay positive the drought is nearing its end and we'll have some good periods to rebuild our heard numbers," he said.
"Once that happens I don't think supply will be an issue at all."
Mr Atkinson said the proximity of Hughenden's "unique" meatworks to northern producers would make it an attractive place for producers to sell cattle.
"It's a quarter beef plant so we're only talking about quarters exported out of Townsville," he said.
"Straight away that's different to what's happening at the moment where all the east coast plants send their product out of Brisbane," he said.
"The Hughenden plant will offer graziers a huge saving in transport costs of live cattle so even if the same price is offered in Hughenden and Townsville, freight savings alone will make producers look at the Hughenden option."
Hundreds of producers from as far afield as Camooweal attended the meet and greet with investors, but it is still unclear whether any of them are willing to enter into a binding agreement to supply cattle to a new processor.
Under the memorandum of understanding with North Beef, DSCY Investments needs to find an operator to run the meatworks.
Mr Atkinson said a formal agreement could be finalised in two to three months if everything went to plan.
The communities of Townsville, Charters Towers, Julia Creek and Emerald also have abattoir proposals in place, and have all courted foreign investors.
Graziers to influence new pricing model
The pricing grid Hughenden's meatworks will use if its gets the all clear has been heavily influenced by northern graziers.
North Beef chair Rob Atkinson said there was widespread discontent over the prices paid for cattle over the last three years.
He said this new grid would address a number of gripes producers have had with the system used at larger meatworks.
"There's quite a few things there producers have been unhappy with for a long time and we're trying to address them in this new grid," he said.
"The weight increments are 20 kilograms on most grids, we want to stretch that out to 50 kilograms.
"The sides are weighed and not the whole carcasses so you get different pricings on sides, we want the whole carcass weighed.
"For cattle with four teeth or less we want the same price for heifers as steers, per kilogram."
ABC Online
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