Slaughtering
The abattoir has been designed for a daily slaughter of 600 heads of cattle (average live weight 450 kg) with allowance for an increase to 800 heads in the future.
The following procedures take place on the dressing floor
- Horn removal
- Head removal
- Skinning
- Evisceration
- Carcass splitting
Boning and packaging facility
The capacity of the boning facility where hind quarter and forequarter beef is de-boned into either primal cuts or wholesale beef is 450 heads of cattle per day.
The capacity of the Trupac facility where low-grade beef is cut up and pre-packed is 400 quarters per day.
Offal packaging
Immediately beneath the dressing floor, the area is divided into areas for red and white offal treatment and packaging for automatic carton freezing.
Cold Room Complex
Beef quarters descend from the dressing floor into the cold room complex for overnight chilling to 7°C in one of the five hot beef chillers.
Thereafter the carcasses are either held in one of 3 holding chillers, one of 2 local sales chillers, on of 4 carcass freezers or taken to a quartering station prior to boning and dispatch.
The complex has the following refrigeration and cold storage capacities:
- Quick chill 640 carcasses per day
- De-bone 240 carcase equivalents per day
- Freeze 150 carcasses per day
- Tru Store production 100 carcasses per day
- Chill Hold 1000 carcasses
- Freezer Stacking Clean Products 375 tonnes
- Rough Product 250 tonnes
- Semi-automatic Carton Tunnel Freezers 4 tunnel freezers, one or rough offal (1600 cartons), one for clean offal (1600 cartons) and two for beef from boning room (1900 cartons each)
Rendering Plant
Rendering takes place using materials from the two-storey dressing floor/by-products collection building and the boning room. Tallow, meat and bone meal and blood are produced. Waste heat is recovered from the rendering plant to generate hot water for use throughout the abattoir.
The capacity of the rendering plant covers all waste and by-products from the abattoir.
Hides preparation
Hides are conveyed directly from the de-hiding operation at the dressing floor to the hide department.
Hides are trimmed, mechanically de-fleshed and salted.
Storage is provided for 6,000 hides.
