More than $90k awarded to Tingle Ridge Farm to explore Mt Barker multi-species abattoir for Small Farmers WA

A new multi-species abattoir is on the cards for Mt Barker after more than $90,000 was awarded to explore the farmer-led project, put forward in a bid to safeguard service kills for the region’s small producers. Tingle Ridge Farm was one of eight successful agribusiness applicants to receive State Government funding last week, securing $90,090 to conduct a feasibility study for the abattoir. Farm owner Patrick O’Neill is leading the venture on behalf of the Small Farmers WA, where Mr O’Neill serves as chief executive. The project was sparked by the Dardanup Butchering Company’s 2024 decision to cease processing animals from small-scale livestock farmers. Although the Bunbury-based business has since backflipped on the reversal, Mr O’Neill said service kill providers — a process whereby the livestock producer retains ownership of the meat after it has been slaughtered — were “increasingly difficult” to come by. “The sort of background for why we’re doing what we’re doing is to guarantee that service for small producers like myself, and doing it at a scale which is accessible to many more businesses than just myself,” he said. The O’Neills operate a paddock-to-plate farm in Tingledale, near Denmark, and sell boxes of Dorper lamb cuts across the south coast. Their business is reliant on service kills. Mr O’Neill said he hoped to push the local industry forward and tap into funding offered for the upcoming 2028 live export ban. “While (the ban) is painful for many, it does present the opportunity in that there is funding available at the moment, specifically for the construction of new abattoirs, so that’s something we’re going to have a crack at,” he said. The abattoir, which will initially deal with sheepmeat, goat, beef and pork, is earmarked for construction at the Mt Barker Regional Saleyards on Albany Highway. “We’re looking at Mt Barker because it is somewhat strategically located in the Great Southern, being fairly central to a very large and reasonably intense region of livestock production and of multiple species,” Mr O’Neill said. He said the building was still in the design phase but was expected to be a “humble-scale” industrial facility, with the Shire of Plantagenet currently negotiating a lease-to-purchase arrangement. Although the project remains in its early stages, Mr O’Neill hopes the feasibly study will prove its value to the supply chain and attract further funding. He hopes to have the abattoir up and running by 2028. “It is probably ambitious, considering the regulatory complexity of the project and getting all the licensing and lots of stuff arranged,” he said. “But the sooner we can get this thing up and running, the sooner it’s going to benefit producers and then start to reconnect consumers with product with provenance.”