Tabro Meats sells to MMG

The Wonthaggi plant is expected to be running again by the end of August or early September and will begin by accepting dairy culls, bulls and aged beef.

MMG executive chairman Tim Clarke said the acquisition of Tabro and InterAgri marked the start of the MMG 1829 group's development of a vertically integrated business.

He said it would target domestic and international retail, food service and online markets, including "world class manufacturers".

It has been leasing Tabro since February and maintained its market access to China and MMG would like to have it EU qualified as soon as possible.

"The MMG model is seriously scalable and we are set to pursue further acquisitions to bolster the business and position it as a leading Australian agriculture company," Mr Clarke said.

Part of that vertical integration will include farming.

Mr Clarke said it planned to source one third from its own farms, one third from contracted farms and another third from the open market, which will include saleyard purchases as well as private sales.

"I've got a small farm up here in Tylden, which we'll background cattle on," he said.

"We're looking at a few options in Gippsland and we're going to have a northern Australia footprint as well in our pipeline, and so we'll end up processing at Casino as we move forward over the next 12 to 18 months."

Tabro will be renamed Mandeville Pty Ltd and chief executive Shaun Brorsen said its capacity would lift from 500 to 800 head a day over the next 12 months.

It will employ 200-225 people initially but Mr Clarke expected there would be a 300-strong workforce once the extended capacity was reached.

"We're going to mainly focus on hot boning and quarter beef to start with and then the cold boning will come later," he said.

Mr Clarke said all of the funding for the acquisitions has come from Australian financiers but none were currently involved in the meat industry.

"It's Australia for these two particular transactions, but when we move further down our pipeline there's international capital, but it will be mainly US and European money," he said.

Asked what lessons had been learned from the previous failure of Tabro under Chinese ownership, Mr Clarke said he didn't want to 'criticise' but there were differences.

"We'll have a much more targeted capex plan for what we want done and we will have a lot of market channels to export to, not just one market," he said.

"We believe our recovery rates per per per animal, dollar-wise, are far higher than the previous owners'.

"There's a rendering plant that's one of the main priorities to get up and running.

"We'll be investing in renewable energy, we'll be able to produce our own methane, we'll be able to capture a lot of our water, cover the roof in solar panels, will recycle everything as much as we possibly can; we'd even like to think that we can become a net exporter of energy."

In fact, sustainability will be a big part of the marketing message. Mandeville aims to be carbon neutral in five years and even carbon negative within seven.

"What we're doing in our business will negate a lot of that misinformation that's around there and that beef is a good healthy choice that has a minimal impact on the environment," Mr Clarke said.

It will also take a "zero tolerance" approach to animal welfare, will introduce carrier and stockman accreditation and even consult with high profile animal behaviourist, Temple Grandin.

Mr Clarke said one of the greatest risks faced by the new operation is coronavirus, which has caused the closure of several Victorian abattoirs.

"The advantage we've got a little bit at the moment is obviously has been expressing outbreaks in the industry," he said.

"We're looking at how they're managing them, and where systems have broken down but that's absolutely front and foremost of our thinking because that's basically the biggest risk to our business."

Mandeville wanted to be a good employer and contributor to the community, Mr Clarke said.

"We really want the local the local community to know we want to be a good part of the community, we'd like people to embrace us and will embrace them."

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