Meat processor HW Greenham is expanding its south-west operations to set up a new live weight buying centre in Koroit to target the culled dairy cow market.
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The company, which has meat processing plants in Tongala in northern Victoria and in Smithton in Tasmania, expanded to the south-west earlier this year to set up weekly buying centres in Simpson, Timboon and Camperdown.
Greenham marketing and communications manager Trevor Fleming said the company received between 100-200 cows each week from the three south-west buying centres.
The cows were sent to Tongala to produce manufacturing meat beef for Greenham’s American and Asian customers. The plant processes mainly cast-for-age dairy cows and bulls of all ages and sizes.
The Tongala plant plant also receives cattle from eight other buying centres that Greenham has established elsewhere in Victoria.
It buys cows from more than 4000 suppliers through its live weight scale operations or through “over the hooks” trading.
Mr Fleming said the success of the three south-west buying centres had encouraged Greenham to soon establish another centre at 602 Penshurst-Port Fairy Road, Koroit.
Greenham will hold a information session from 11am-1pm on Thursday, August 31 at the Terang Football Club at the Terang Recreation Reserve in Strong Street to provide information for farmers about its services. A barbecue lunch will be provided.
Mr Fleming said HW Greenham & Sons had a focus on building strong relationships with its suppliers and buying directly where possible.
Simpson dairy farmer Daniel Laird said he liked to sell to Greenham because he was paid for the weight the cattle had at time of delivery and for because he had a wide window of time in which to deliver cattle.
“At other scales, I’ve watched cattle go through the crush that then show up 70 kilogram short on the docket, which is truly disappointing,” Mr Laird said.
Simpson scales operator Andrew Wilson said live weight scales sales provided farmers with a quick and convenient method to maintain cash flow.
Mr Wilson said there were no curfews with the company’s scales sales. Cattle were weighed as they came in and payment was made on the spot.
“Farmers are paid the full price per kilogram,” he said.
Cooriemungle dairy farmer Rudi Notter said he dealt with Greenham more than 10 years ago when he was farming in Numurkah and it was good to see them buying cattle in the south-west.
