Pork processor Swickers to triple throughput capacity

The Kingaroy-based pig processor is owned by vertically integrated pork company, SunPork Fresh Foods, and has the largest throughput of any pork abattoir in Australia.

Currently, Swickers boning facility can process 2000 pigs per day on a single shift and last week returned to full production after restoration work due to a fire in 2016.

The incident delayed important redevelopment work by 14 months on Swickers separate abattoir facility, located on the same site, and caused great uncertainty in local pork markets.

SunPork Group managing director, Robert van Barneveld, said the business can now focus on completing the pork abattoir upgrade by March next year.

Currently, Swickers abattoir process 18,000 to 20,000 pigs per week over two shifts-a-day, which equates to 280 pigs per hour. The new upgraded abattoir will have capacity to process 750 pigs per hour.

“Main drivers for a redevelopment were maintenance of high processing standards, increased efficiency and meeting capacity needs for the next 30 years and beyond,” Dr van Barneveld said.

“We recognize a need to support the pork industry for many years to come by increasing capacity.

“We’ve known our capacity has been an issue for sometime and despite the subdued pork market environment, it’s not something you can defer.”

The upgraded Swickers pork abattoir will have state-of-art equipment installed.

“The new facility will maintain the highest standards of animal welfare and help achieve world’s best processing practice,” Mr van Barneveld said.

The new equipment will include a ‘Back Thinner’ that will significantly increase carcase yield, which exposes the spine and can cut very accurately beside the vertebrae.

Other new innovations include vertical scalding for hair removal that is reportedly more water efficient and hygienic than traditional horizontal methods. The upgraded processing facility will also introduce snap chilling, which over a 120 minute cycle the pigs carcase temperature will be brought down to two degrees Celsius. According to Dr van Barneveld this will improve product shelf life and meat quality, plus lift carcase yield due to reduced drip loss.

“The snap chilling process is a little electricity hungry, but overall it reduces your refrigeration requirements,” he said.

“Once the carcase has been through a snap chiller, it goes into a much milder refrigeration phase and therefore it reduces our overall net chilling costs.”

Swickers has well established Asian export offal markets and plans to continue developing carcase and specific pork meat markets in Asia.

“We are very competitive in the offal market due to our disease-free statue,” Dr van Barneveld said.

“We need to leverage off our provenance, high health standards and overall product quality to grow our pork business.”

Dr van Barneveld added the pork carcase export market is relatively small but growing. Meanwhile, the primal pork meat cuts remain mostly sold in our domestic market.

“Pork is the most consumed meat (accounting for 36 per cent of world meat intake) and Asia is the best consumer, but there’s a lot of competition to supply Asia,” he said.

“There are countries with lower cost of production than Australia who are landing pork in Asia cheaper than we can.

“That’s why Australia imports 70 per cent of the pork it uses in ham and bacon from overseas, so it’s not an insignificant task to compete in Asian markets.”

There’s little hope of domestic pork prices increasing during this year according to SunPork Group managing director Robert van Barneveld.

Pork market industry experts expect prices to remain subdued during 2018.

“We are hoping the low prices have reached a bottom point with a 30 per cent price fall over the past 12 months,” Dr van Barneveld said.

SunPork is equal largest pork producer in Australia.

“In Queensland the pork prices are close to cost of production and there’s not much margin for those entirely dependent on the domestic bacon price,” Dr van Barneveld said.

“There was a whole range of factors for the price decline, one of them being the fire at Swickers and resulting loss of our export statue, which placed some nervousness in the market.

“Some people were concerned if there was a need to export than our capacity was lost.”

He added there’s also been some oversupply issues with four consecutive four-day weeks, which meant more pigs were processed in less time and creating a slight market oversupply.

Adding to the pain were rapid price declines from historic highs, which appears to have made the pork market uncomfortable.

“There was need for a downwards market price correction, but it fell far more than people expected,” Dr van Barneveld said.

“If you look at it in pure economic terms the market didn’t respond rationally.

“Price decreases were mostly due to market uncertainty.”

Dr van Barneveld hopes prices have stabilized and the market will start responding to normal supply and demand dynamics.

“It does depend on where you live, but it has reached a price point that’s tough for Queensland pig producers,” he said.