By CASEY NEILL
AUSTRALIA’S newest abattoir is sending beef around the world and bringing jobs to Dandenong South.
Australian Meat Group (AMG) opened in Hammond Road last July.
“It was an existing site for an abattoir so most of the approvals were already in place, so that made it easier,” managing director Gilbert Cabral said.
“It was a shell. We picked up a shell so it saved us some planning costs for approvals.
“It made the process to fit out the existing abattoir and build the extension a lot more rapid.
“The previous owners (Castricum Brothers) were operating an export lamb program here, so we had to raise most of the rails and most of the processing areas and some of the roof had to be raised to handle the larger carcasses.
“This is probably the newest plant in Australia.
“It’s very automated and it’s got a very good, strong base for automation to build on.
“We’ve got a very strong cold chain management program, which gives you your shelf life.”
The shelf life is important for the export market, which makes up about 80 per cent of AMG’s sales.
“We have licences to export to many countries, including America, Japan,” Mr Cabral said.
AMG has another plant in Deniliquin for lamb and sheep but saw Dandenong South – known as the gateway to beef hub Gippsland – was “more of a beef area”.
“We’ll draw cattle wherever we need to draw from and depending on seasonal supply,” Mr Cabral said.
“We can do all breeds for different markets.”
The plant can process 2500 cattle each week.
“We’ll continue to build that up as our customer base grows,” Mr Cabral said.
AMG was a newly-formed company.
“We were formerly owners of a company called Tasman Meat Group,” he said.
“We sold to a multinational.
“After a period of non-compete we’ve come back into the industry.
“We’re a fresh new team but we’ve got extensive experience in the meat industry.
“Our senior team is all ex-Tasman – our CFO, our sales manager and our livestock manager are all ex-Tasman.
“Now that we’re back we’re going back to our old customers.
“They come and visit the site and see what we do, how we’re doing it.”
The plant is running one shift and employs 250 people but is set up for a second shift and plans to grow to 400 workers.
“My father was in the meat industry so I basically followed him,” Mr Cabral said.
“I love it.
“It’s been a great industry for me.
“It’s good to develop the processing side and export product around the world, and speak to a lot of producers.”
