The quest for the $5 killing charge

Abstract

After innitial investigations into setting up a mobile rendering plant in Northland, it became apparent that my time would be better spent looking into the Freezing Industry with a view to either getting better performance from our existing facilities or by replacing them with smaller, more efficient plants. My reasons for abandoning the mobile rendering plant proposal were; - with the decline in the national flock over the past twelve months, the problem of getting killing space for old ewes was not so great. - with an easing of stocking rates on farms, there was less difficulty in getting cull ewes to a marketable standard. - a fall from better than $1000/ton to around $500/ton in prices for tallow reduced the possible returns from a rendering plant. I decided my time and energy was better spent on looking at alternative slaughter facilities. (A farm killing about 600 ewes and 2000 lambs a year, stood to gain better return/ewe say $6 x 600 = $3600 compared with a possible savings of $3 - $4 in killing charges on 2600 units = $7800 from improved killing facilities.)