AACo managing director Jason Strong has confirmed that the company’s much anticipated Darwin abattoir has begun processing commission cattle.
Mr Strong told delegates at today’s Ag in the Asian Century conference in Toowoomba that commission cattle had been moving through the $91 million facility for the past three weeks.
He said the next goal was to process a single shift of cattle by March next year.
“We are well on line to do that,” he said.
“We have all the cattle we need to meet those requirements actually in our possession now.
“We have 43,000 cattle lined up, dedicated for the plant leading up to March next year.”
Mr Strong said the AACo management had deliberately adopted a strategy to closely control what information was released about the progress of the construction of the processing plant in order to focus on meeting its own deadlines.
“We know there is a lot of interest in it and we’d love to feed the frenzy but we are really keen to keep some control around the messaging and make sure we just talk about what we are actually doing,” he said.
“We are very excited with the progress and that as a company we have been able to get it to this stage from a timing and budgetary point of view."
Penelope Arthur
Journalist for Queensland Country Life at Roma.
Journalist for Queensland Country Life at Roma.
