Wednesday, 5 February 2025

Meat processing industry

Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (18:51): (1383) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Agriculture, and it concerns the challenges small livestock producers face in accessing slaughter and butchering services. The action that I seek is for the minister to urgently respond to and implement recommendation 27 from the final report of the inquiry into food security in Victoria. An abattoir in central Victoria recently wrote to its customers with the sudden and unexpected news that from the start of the 2025 year the abattoir would no longer accept requests for small service kills. This decision will impact a large number of small-scale livestock farmers and artisanal producers in central Victoria, leaving them in the lurch, with no other abattoirs close by who are willing to process their slaughter requirements.

For the last few decades ownership of slaughter facilities in Australia has been consolidating into the hands of a few multinational companies, which have been buying up abattoirs across the country. These companies often also own feedlots to raise livestock as well as the meat processing facilities to finish the final product. They have purchased abattoirs in order to vertically integrate their businesses, controlling the product flow from paddock to packaging and improving their profits through process efficiencies. That means that the large commercial abattoirs now refuse to process smaller kills, leaving small-scale producers shut out from the slaughter services that they need to process their meat and get it to farmers markets, local butcher shops and the restaurants they supply.

The troubling announcement came just after the release of the final report of the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into food security, which warned about difficulties for small producers in accessing kill facilities. The state Labor government tried and failed to fix this problem back in 2019 when it amended the Meat Industry Act 1993. In her speech on the bill Jacinta Allan noted that consolidation in the meat processing sector had created barriers to small producers gaining access to abattoir services. She claimed that the government’s legislative tweaks would respond to the need for a regulatory framework that supports the operation of micro or mobile abattoirs to facilitate smalls processing.

However, four years on from that reform it is clear that the amended framework is not actually enabling micro abattoirs but in fact seems to be hindering them. Evidence was given during the food security inquiry that there is much confusion surrounding the regulation of mobile abattoirs. The city of Bendigo’s submission to the inquiry says that gaining the necessary licences for on-farm or mobile slaughtering is challenging, resulting in few businesses offering these services. Recent changes in the abattoir industry make it even more urgent for the government to act quickly and streamline and coordinate the regulatory framework in order to facilitate more mobile and micro abattoir services.