June 7, 2010

Australia's meat plants set to reopen

The Burrangong Meat Processors in Young, New South Wales, and the Katherine Abbatoir in Northern Territory, are both set to reopen after purchases by new owners.

Burrangong, which went into receivership in February with debts over US$20 million, has been sold to the BE Campbell Group.

"We sold the abattoir to the BE Campbell Group. The BE Campbell Group is a family company that operates in the meat processing and distribution industry," said Burrangong receiver Alan Hayes.

"As I understand, it the purchaser has got to do some refurbishment work to some of the buildings. It's not going to reopen tomorrow with 300 employees, but it will reopen in time after it's been refurbished on a staged basis. When that reemployment will commence, I'm unsure at this stage," he added.

The new abbatoir plans to hire 88 employees initially and expand over time.

The Katherine Abbatoir, closed since 2001, was sold by Teys Bros to the Darwin Investment Group. CEO John Hughes said the plant will no longer focus on cattle - the plant closed because of its inability to compete with live cattle export prices - but instead look at processing feral animals.

"What we're looking at doing is trying to do something with the camels in Central Australia, buffalo and maybe horses and donkeys, but predominantly it would be feral animals," he said.