First look inside $37m CQ Signature Onfarm abattoir | Photos, video

A new $37m designer abattoir is set to be a gamechanger for Central Queensland and you can even bring your horse to work. See inside for the first time.

A new game-changing $37 million abattoir opening in Central Queensland will export boutique beef to 30 countries around the world.

The Angus family — whose name actually descends from Scotland’s Aberdeenshire where Angus cattle began — spent five years planning the 6000sq m greenfields site that will open in coming weeks.

Josie and Blair Angus are the mum-and-dad cattle entrepreneurs behind the operation bringing processing “back to the bush” in a bid to meet the international appetite for high-value red meat.

It is a new element to the Bowen Basin which is teeming with coal mines, train tracks and overhead power lines jutting out like the vertebrae of an industrial machine.

And though made of metal, the Moranbah slaughterhouse is surrounded by sunlit pastures with roaming cattle.

Signature Onfarm is a new abattoir built on the Sondella cattle property in Moranbah, Central Queensland. Picture: Heidi Petith

But unlike other abattoirs, no beast will ever see the inside.

As Mrs Angus explained, they are knocked outside to reduce stress and improve the meat’s quality, with scientific principles a driving factor in every aspect of Signature Onfarm’s design.

Inside the abattoir

The plant features four big chillers or “big fridge(s)” plus blast freezers to gradually reduce beef to the correct temperature over two days instead of the typical 24 hours.

Signature On Farm co-owner Josie Angus standing next to one of the huge cold storage rooms at the new abattoir scheduled to open towards the end of September. Picture: Heidi Petith

And over in the boning room, the Angus’ are shaking up the production line with one team to work on one bovine at a time.

Mrs Angus said this let them follow their customers’ 1600 different specifications down to the individual steak’s thickness, fat trimmings and muscle protrusions.

The plant would also specialise in dry ageing, taking beef to the “next level” of flavour and freshness.

“(We’re) able to present a product without ever having to have touched plastic which is great for our world going forward,” Mrs Angus said.

She said the premium product with reduced moisture that packed more flavour per gram was also a throwback to the early days of meat processing.

Josie Angus says there is a global resurgence in popularity for dry ageing. Picture: Heidi Petith

“Going into the dry age chillers, it develops its own crust so its natural packaging is fat and bone,” Mrs Angus said.

“We then put a layer of muslin cloth around it which just protects it in transit.”

From tip to tail, almost nothing will go to waste at the plant.

“The beef industry’s amazing in terms of little-known things like heart sacs, which are used for valve replacements in humans, all the way down to the surfactants, that we use to save premature babies, are actually taken from bovine lungs,” Mrs Angus said.

“I think we’re down to the skull at the moment, we’re struggling with the skull,” she said.

An aerial view of the Signature Onfarm abattoir, a $37 million project set to be a gamechanger for Central Queensland. Picture: Signature Onfarm

But the Angus’ were saving the best for their “value-adding room” where they planned to charm a cosmopolitan mix of clients with giant windows creating a “connect(ion) with the land and the cattle”.

Global appetite

Mrs Angus said all the quality assurance programs in the world could not replace the loyalty created when international customers experienced the countryside in person, albeit with a few green-legged friends thrown into the mix.

Josie Angus says their new Central Queensland abattoir between Clermont and Moranbah will create about 1600 different products to export to 30 countries across the globe. Picture: Heidi Petith

“I had a Korean customer have one land on his face in the middle of the night then have one crawl into his suitcase and arrive in Brisbane with him,” she said with a chuckle.

“One of our largest clients from Europe was so excited by the sunrise that he ran out onto the lawn in his rather skimpy underwear to photograph it.

“And likewise, we’ve shared some wonderful times overseas as well.”

The mother-of-four said along with servicing Australian restaurants, IGA supermarkets, wholesalers and butchers including Mackay’s Tender Cut Meats, their products would ship to 30 countries.

Signature Onfarm is a new $37 million boutique abattoir in Central Queensland that will be able to manufacture 1600 different cuts of beef including designer steaks. Picture: Signature Onfarm

“We’ve got a client in Denmark where we’re actually doing dry age loin pieces that are dry-aged in a container on the way to Europe,” Mrs Angus said.

Game changer for Central Queensland

Along with Signature Onfarm, the Angus family have two other business.

They run 35,000 head of cattle under their Angus Pastoral Company with a main breeding place west of Townsville.

And through Signature Beef, they buy cattle, market meat, and organise service processing via abattoirs such as in northern NSW.

This project has led to 200 jobs during construction and will employ 80 people to run it.

The plant will reduce kilometres of transport by 74 per cent or 56,610,733km when compared with processing cattle in the southeast corner.

The company’s Australian first sterlisers offer a 94 per cent saving in water and energy use and all the plant hot water requirements are generated by waste heat.

For comparison, major beef processors use 77 per cent of their total energy use for hot water and steam production.

“We’ve had a unique challenge in having to process in NSW, our cattle actually can’t cross the tick line from directly out of the paddock,” she said.

The feedlot at Signature Onfarm, a new abattoir built between Clermont and Moranbah Central Queensland. Owners Josie and Blair Angus hope to extend the feedlot from 2000 to 5000 head of cattle once the processing plant kicks off. Picture: Heidi Petith

Mrs Angus said they wanted to service others like themselves who branded their own beef products.

She said they were looking forward to expanding their grass-fed range with plans to increase their existing on-site feedlot’s capacity from 2000 to 5000.

“(The abattoir) is the first greenfield site in Queensland in almost 28 years,” she said.

“There’s been a huge consolidation into the cities with much larger plants but unfortunately that takes the plants further away from the cattle, further away from livestock producers and their ability to see what happens beyond their farm gate.

“ … It’s also a lot more efficient to be carting nice tessellated boxes of beef rather than big lumpy cows.”

Josie Angus inspecting the finishing touches on a five year project to get the processing plant off the ground Picture: Heidi Petith

The family is also hoping that one day soon, beef could head overseas from Mackay ports instead of from Brisbane, a dream many regional manufacturers share.

Regional jobs with pet horses

To service the 200-head-per-day abattoir, the Angus’ built a workers’ village complete with a football oval and a “view that goes on for miles”.

And the family are hosting a careers open day on October 4 for interested jobseekers.

The new workers village built on the Sondella cattle property for the Signature Onfarm processing plant. It includes a rugby field and staff can even bring their horse to the job. Picture: Heidi Petith

“We’re really keen to see regional people get involved with this and really be a part of a lifestyle out here,” Mrs Angus said.

“It’s pretty novel when you can do a bit of meat processing in the morning, park your horse there and train him in the afternoon.”

She said they hoped to be up and running by the end of September.

Signature Onfarm have locked in a Careers Open day for October 16.

For more details, follow their Facebook page.