The Carbon Tax was just the last nail in the coffin of another meat packing company in the south. Having seen
Castricum, Prom Meats, Coles,Woolworths,Trafalgar and Westmeats close down their slaughtering facilities in the last couple of years despite being operational since the fifties.
These closures have cost a couple of thousand jobs while the governments is pouring millions into the live shipping trade at the expense of the meat industry.
Famed beef producer
King
Island
has lost its only meat processing facility.
Brazilian multinational JBS's Australian subsidiary says meat grown on the
Bass Strait
island will now be processed at Longford in
Tasmania
.
JBS Australia's website says 105 people are employed at the meat works, making the decision a blow to the island's population of less than 2000.
JBS says the closure comes after continual losses.
'We have made every effort along with the support of the Tasmanian government to try and make this business operate,' JBS chief executive officer Andre Nogueira said in a statement.
'We acknowledge that this decision will have an effect on the
King
Island
community and our workforce.
'We will be actively working with government and the union to support and assist affected workers in transitioning based on their skills to available vacancies at Longford as a first step and to other JBS processing sites if suitable.'
JBS, the world's biggest meat producer, operates 11 facilities in
Australia
.
The company owns the King Island Beef brand, widely regarded as among
Australia
's best and built on a reputation of 100 per cent grass-fed, free-range and hormone-free beef cattle.
'Our ongoing commitment is to continue to be a major buyer of cattle on King Island and to maintain the integrity of the King Island Beef brand and further grow the brand domestically and internationally from our Longford facility on mainland Tasmania,' Mr Nogueira said.
'We believe today's decision is prudent and in the best long-term interest of our Tasmanian operations.'
In December 2010 then-premier David Bartlett visits a then-open King Island abattoir.
Source: Argentine Beef Packers S.A.
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