Woodend farmer gains support for on-farm poultry micro-abattoir

A WOODEND farmer’s campaign to build an on-farm poultry micro-abattoir is gaining momentum

On-farm ambition: Ben Falloon and his daughter Maya, 9, at Taranaki Farm, where he hopes to set up his own micro-abattoir to process chickens. Picture: Zoe Phillips

A  WOODEND farmer’s campaign to build an on-farm poultry micro-abattoir is gaining momentum.

Pastured chicken producer Ben Falloon, of Taranaki Farm, launched a Pozible campaign last week and is more than a quarter of the way to his $80,650 target.

He said the funds would allow him to construct an abattoir that complied with the licensing and regulatory framework needed to operate.

He said part of the project was to create a blueprint for other producers who wanted to replicate his model.

“In the past 12 months it has become critical after the second-to-last poultry abattoir that was accepting small batch chickens turned us away,” Ben said. “If the final abattoir shuts its doors and producers with poultry on pasture are without a processor, there will be no alternative.”

In October 2017, processor Golden Poultry, at Albion, stopped offering contract kill services for small-scale meat chicken farmers.

Ben now sends broilers to Star Poultry in Keysborough.

“It is absolutely about unshackling the small farm entrepreneur to be able to raise birds ethically and humanely and be able to finish that process and bring the product to market,” Ben said.

His plan is to use shipping containers to construct a two-room building that could accommodate hand processing of up to 300 birds a day.