Lamb processor wins Aussie regional exporter award

Northern Tasmanian meat processor, Tasmanian Quality Meats has won the Australian Export Award for a regional exporter.

The company is the creation of Brian Oliver and John Talbot, who met in school forty years ago, and whose overseas achievements have come only recently with export accreditation of their abattoir.

Two years ago TQM broke into the Middle East with exports of chilled lamb, in a market traditionally supplied with live sheep.

This year TQM's added Vietnam to its export destinations, and it's now seeking approval to export lamb to Papua New Guinea.

Brian Oliver says the company has grown to a $20 million export business, and this week's Australian Export Award for a regional business caps off a very big year.

"We fly nearly 50 tonnes a week to the Middle East," he said.

"In the past we've probably flown under the radar.

"The business has been going pretty well in the last two years and we thought this would be a good way to get our name out there.

"I believe we wouldn't have succeeded without the commitment from our production team.

"We work as a team and I think that has enabled us the achieve the success that we have so far."

Chris Cocker says TQM's attention to meat quality and safety involves the whole team from the workers to the owner

This year Tasmanian Quality Meats has completed a major building and construction program enabling it to kill, bone, pack and chill or freeze meat in an integrated complex near Cressy.

"Vietnam is an emerging market in lamb.

"Yes, not a lot of people eat lamb but I think there are 64,000 expats in Ho Chi Minh alone.

"There's a lot of people that enjoy lamb and I think the locals are moving onto it as well.

"If we can supply lamb direct into Vietnam I think if we can supply lamb direct the prices are more competitive than maybe going through traders and having a lot of middle people putting extra margins in and making it too expensive to eat.

"This year we've just opened our boning room and lamb cutting room and freezing and chilling area, so we can value add," Brian Oliver said.

"In the past we've sent all our product across to Victoria to be further processed, at a huge cost.

"With the government's assistance we've been able to take ourselves forward a number of years and build the boning and freezing facility.
"We do a mixture of veal and lamb and mutton.

"Now we won't look at more units [animals] as such,

"We'll be looking at value-adding a lot more of the units that we're currently doing, and getting a better return."

Brian Oliver says abundant feed for livestock in pastures will also change the firm's focus in 2014.

"The seasons in Tasmania are different this year, and I think there's going to be a focus on a different type of lamb, because of the amount of rain that we've had and the amount of feed that's around.

"People will probably carry their lambs on to a larger weight, so we need to go into a different area.

"We want to start moving towards a specialised lamb brand and move into the more trade-weight lambs.

"We want to get into the better end market and promote a 'Tasmanian lamb', which I think we can get a premium for, because of the clean, green image of Tasmania."

Walnuts Australia, another Tasmanian firm took out the Australian Export Award in Agribusiness.

Source: ABC News, 27 November 2013