A MOTHBALLED southern NSW abattoir has been reopened by a West Australian lamb marketing co-operative.
Western Australia Meat Marketing Co-operative International began processing at Southern Meats, Goulburn, earlier this month.
Southern Meats managing director Coll MacRury said a daily kill of 2500 sheep and lambs had created up to 130 jobs.
"We needed supply to look after our world markets," Mr MacRury said.
The abattoir, which had been closed since March, has been reopened with an initial export focus.
The move comes on the back of an exodus of more than one million sheep from WA, creating lamb production problems for WA exporters and processors.
With last year regarded as one of the toughest supply periods in its history, WAMMCO International opened this year on a record incentive of $5.60/kg to encourage producers to support the co-operative.
Mr MacRury said Southern Meats was paying $4.50-$4.70/kg for heavier lambs of 22kg carcass weight plus.
He said sheep and lambs were being drawn direct from southern producers and from NSW saleyards.
The co-operative uses VIASCAN technology to assess carcass value at its Western Australian Katanning plant, and may adopt the technology at Goulburn.
WAMMCO International has 2138 members holding 6.2 million shares.
The co-operative focuses heavily on chilled production, with both chilled air and sea-freighted consignments destined for markets in Europe, the US, Middle East, Asia and Africa.
Mr MacRury said the Middle East was the co-operative's biggest market by volume and value over the past 12-18 months.
He said Southern Meats was not reopened on co-operative principles, but WAMMCO shares could be offered if eastern producers showed interest.
Mr MacRury said a new IT system would be installed at the plant, and throughput ramped up to 25,000 head a week.
