Victorian Petfood Processors (VPP) operations manager David Preece said processing kangaroos for pet meat would be uneconomic for his company unless it was also able to process the kangaroo skins. Mr Preece said his company had spent about $40,000 upgrading its Hamilton pet food processing plant to process kangaroos after the state government last year announced a two-year trial of kangaroo processing.

He said processing kangaroos would provide income for up to seven kangaroo shooters in the shires surrounding Hamilton, as well as up to another seven people at its Hamilton processing plant.

It could also boost employment at VPP’s Camperdown plant where the kangaroo meat would be frozen, he said.

VPP’s plant at Black Rock Road, on Camperdown’s south-eastern outskirts, employs 35 people and is the company’s headquarters. 

Mr Preece said he had been “haggling with the state and federal governments” for the past 12 months to get all the necessary approvals.

He said he hoped to hear from the federal government in the near future as to whether it would give the go-ahead for the transport of kangaroo skins interstate. Without the income from the kangaroo skins, the company would be unable to pay shooters for the kangaroo carcases, he said.

Mr Preece said he expected the kangaroos to be processed would come from the Southern Grampians, Pyrenees and Ararat shires.

Those shires are among the 12 regional councils in Victoria where the state government is trialling the processing of kangaroos that would otherwise be buried or discarded as part of culling programs.

VPP is the only company licensed to process kangaroos in the south-west.

The state government last year announced a two-year trial of kangaroo processing for pet food after a long campaign by processors to utilise the animals that were being wasted in culls.