Kokiri plant will provide economic boost

Press, 15 June 1978, Page 22

Kokiri plant will provide economic boost

Tenders 'will shortly be called for the building of a regional abattoir and export meat-processing plant to be established aKokiri, as a joint venture between West Coast farmers represented by Phoenix Meat Company, and local bodies represented by the West Coast Regional Abattoir Authority. It will have strong Government support.

Four West Coast counties are involved, Buller, Inangahua, Grey and Westland, and the organising bodies see the success .of the project as depending on the co-operation of the farmers in these areas. It will all hinge on annual throughput. For some time West Coast meat producers have been unable to participate effectively in the lucrative chiller beef trade. In 1969, a Committee of Inquiry was set up by the then Minister .of Agriculture, Mr B. Taiboys, to look into the abattoir position on the West Coast. Since then local support and initiative plus investigations by ex-

pert consultants has brought about the present promising situation. At the moment the Coast sends away 80 per cent of its dairy products and meat. There are abattoirs at Hokitika and Westport, and although both of them have been upgraded there is no hope of them handling the quantity of stock that needs processing. The building and establishment .of the Kokiri plant is expected to cost S2M. It will be capable of killing and processing up to 250 head of cattle per day, and initially will deal in beef only. Profitability is based on a throughput of 18,400 export cattle and 5400 local cattle per year. The site of the new plant is 5 km from Stillwater and 25 km from Greymouth. and well served by road and rail. It will provide employment for approximately 65 workers in its initial stages, and should encourage farmers to develop some of their unimproved land into grazing areas. A report on the plant written by the West Coast Regional Development Council says, “With the success following the introduction of aerial oversowing .on marginal land, the possibilities for expanding beef breeding production are enormous.”

And in a letter to the Meat Industry Authority in Wellington, which is supporting the project, Mr D. J. Truman, the Chairman of the West Coast Regional Development Council says, “We believe that the rural nature of the West Coast must be recognised in balanced regional growth.” West Coast citizens and interested local bodies would seem to be contributing substantially towards this concept. Conservationists will be pleased to learn that all effluents produced by the plant will undergo grease removal and screening, then oxidation or flood irrigation.