WA 'missing out' on exotic meat industry

Celebrity butcher Vince Garreffa has called on Western Australia to examine why its game meat industry has virtually disappeared.

WA restaurants have to buy kangaroo, camel and crocodile from other states and can only access a small amount of emu, buffalo and deer from within the state.

Mr Garreffa recalls a time when WA had many abattoirs processing emu, crocodile and buffalo.

He believes it has become too expensive and difficult to process game meat and says it is a shame WA cannot offer customers local produce.

"The people that are missing out is us locals because the profits should be happening here not just at the restaurant end," he said.

"We are helping the businesses in the eastern states ... we all talk about local but it's not local any more is it?"

He says without better government support for local producers, WA is wasting an opportunity.

"We no longer get any ... crocodile, no local kangaroo, very very little emu and ostrich and it breaks my heart because tourism is growing," he said.

"Not only that, not enough restaurants are able to use it because it's getting harder to get and a little bit expensive. There's such a waste."

Meanwhile, a Kimberley crocodile farm is maintaining its abattoir in the hope of being able to once again supply meat for human consumption.

Valerie Douglas, the owner of Broome's crocodile park, says the business supplied meat to the WA market for about 10 years.

The park currently sells crocodile skins and eggs but no longer meat.

Ms Douglas says she still has the facilities to produce meat but at the moment it is not viable.

"An average of 1,000 crocodiles and 10 kilos per croc. The meat pays for the running the abattoir and skinning the crocodiles but then when the price dropped it wasn't worth producing the meat," she said.

"It would be really lovely to be able to say this crocodile is sourced [from] WA and we produced it here but that won't happen for a while."

Source: ABC News, 4 April 2013