Queensland’s Smithfield Cattle Company, the owners of Smithfield Feedlot, Proston, purchased a gem last week when the deal was finalised to take over Sapphire Feedlot in Goondiwindi.
The deal will see Smithfield expand into the Goondiwindi region for the first time and position itself closer to Southern Queensland and Northern New South Wales cattle and grain producers.
Smithfield Feedlot near Proston in the South Burnett, is licensed to 18,500 cattle units and is set to celebrate its 30th year of operation this year.
The Smithfield family are excited to be sending the 2015 Australian Young Lot Feeder of the Year, Andrew Slack, to manage the new yard. Andrew has been involved in the very successful Smithfield Trainee Manager program for the past four years.
Smithfield Cattle Company managing director Jason Shearer-Smith said the expansion into the Goondiwindi region is something the family had been strategically working towards for some time.
“We wanted to purchase an operational feedlot so we could hit the ground running and implement our successful procedures that have driven the success of Smithfield Feedlot,” Jason said.
“We plan to relocate some of our existing Woolworths supply contract cattle from the Proston yard down to Goondiwindi, so operations can begin immediately.”
The 1712ha Sapphire property is located 32km east of Goondiwindi with 415ha irrigated for forage and/or grain production, 1000ha for backgrounding purposes and the balance land being home to the feedlot which is licensed to 8700 cattle units and is currently built to a capacity of 6000 head.
Cattle at Sapphire will be a mixture of Smithfield owned cattle as well as custom fed cattle for our producer and processor clients.