Thousands of sheep, dozens of workers and Western Australia’s meat processing industry are in limbo, with the owners of the only abattoir on the state’s south-east coast understood to have closed the facility.
Key points:
- The Shark Lake abattoir near Esperance is understood to have closed its doors
- It was processing thousands of sheep each week and employed about 50 people
- The Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union says some workers have been relocated to Queensland
The Shark Lake abattoir, 700 kilometres south-east of Perth, near Esperance, re-opened in July last year after it was purchased by Brazil based Minerva Foods as part of a $48 million joint venture with the Saudi Agricultural Livestock and Investment Company.
The facility was employing more than 50 staff and processed several thousand sheep each week, with plans to ramp up processing.
Most workers had moved to Australia from overseas for training and employment.
Numerous industry sources have told the ABC the abattoir went into a two week maintenance shut down last month, and is not expected to re-open.
A week before his old season lambs were due to be processed at Shark Lake, Scaddan sheep farmer Dave Vandenberghe was alerted to the abattoir closure through a Facebook post.
“I’m not sure what their exact reasoning is, but to do it in the middle of the spring flush for lambs, when the processing sector is under a lot of pressure is bad timing, it’s pretty ordinary really,” he said.
“Minerva has sheep on property at the abattoir which need to find a home somewhere, so hopefully the processors elsewhere can fit them in.
“It shows how sudden the decision was, people were just about ready to turn up ready to work, the sheep were there ready to go, and they’ve pulled the pin.”
Mr Vandenberghe said the season was coming to ‘a grinding halt’ placing pressure on farm feed supplies.
He said the closure would impact smaller sheep producers the most.
“We were really pleased when they re-opened, it meant you could get smaller lines in, if you have 120 lambs ready, it’s hard to find room on a truck for that amount, and to get that booking in a larger abattoir, so it was good to have that relationship locally,” he said.
Union hopes workers will be redeployed
Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union federal secretary Mathew Journeaux said he had not received official confirmation from Minerva.
However, he understood about 27 workers from Shark Lake had been offered positions with JBS in Queensland and said the union hoped find positions for the rest.
“Meat workers are salt of the earth working people. It is a tough job,” he said.
“A lot of these jobs have been filled by overseas workers.
“They have come over here to make a better life for their families and send money back home and obviously sometimes it ends in shattered dreams.
“Unfortunately, if they don’t get a sponsor those PALM workers would have to return to their home countries.
“But again the industry has been looking for workers for a while so if they contact the union we’ll do everything we can to get them relocated.”
In a statement provided to the ABC, Minerva said it was conducting a review of the Esperance facility.
“Minerva Foods Australia (MFA) have been operating an abattoir and boning room in Esperance for just over a year, during which time there has been extensive renewal of the existing facility alongside development of operational, procurement and sales capability,” the statement said.
“At this time, MFA have taken the decision to undertake a review of operations at Esperance to fully analyse what further investment is needed.
“Whilst this review is being conducted the Esperance site will not be operating.
“Where possible staff will be redeployed to other facilities in the MFA group with a small number taking up redundancies.
“All existing meat orders will be fulfilled by MFA through their operations in Tammin and Victoria.”
Livestock producers are concerned what options they will have for their stock, some with sheep waiting for processing have been told they will now not be processed at Shark Lake.
It would be the third time in six years the Shark Lake abattoir has closed its doors. This time it comes when there is unprecedented demand for sheep processing in WA.
The next nearest abattoir to the Esperance area is approximately 500 kilometres away.
Statement no assurance
The concerns of the agricultural community have been shared by Esperance Shire President Ian Mickel who said while the company had guaranteed to process ‘existing orders’ the long-term impact on the industry was unclear.
“To have an operation or good operating meet works in Esperance think is a real essential for the agricultural industry,” he said.
“Those sheep farmers that would be relying on this being operational, I think it’s very disappointing.
“Minerva started here, and they appeared to be a very competitive company, but obviously can’t make it work at the present time.”
Mr Mickel said the shire had not been made aware of the company’s plans to close the abattoir and were unable to reach the company after rumours surfaced.
“Last week, the rumour was out there happening and that’s disappointing, but obviously they’ve got compliance issues that they need to deal with,” he said.
“We would have liked Minerva to advise us of what was happening before today.”
He said the statement provided some clarity, but questions remained over if and when the facility would resume operations.
“We’ve got some sort of a statement, we have no assurance,” he said
“Hopefully, they can get it back up and running well, and it has a long life, operating killing livestock here in Esperance.”
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