Meat plant- value for money?

[Happier diner]

12 hours ago, John Wright said:

Agree about live export. But you’re wrong about the quality product.

Hill sheep are, mainly, for wool, not meat. Young lands may be brought of the mountain and fattened for slaughter and consumption. Loghtan is great, and premium. 

But with beef, premium is a mix of two things, quality at slaughter ( producer and abattoir cost ) and how long it’s been hung before butchering, ( retailer cost ).

Theres considerable cost in cold store, both capital in setting the cold room, running costs, electric, and having the meat hanging there for 4, 5, 6 weeks, losing moisture and weight, instead of selling on within a few days.

Yes I agree, there is nothing different about a manx lamb from, say, a Yorkshire lamb. But marketing is about perception. So, you put itnt the customers mind that they are getting something better. New Zealand did it for years with the NZ lamb marketing. Turns out NZ lamb is just mass produced like everywhere else. It's still considered higher quality in many customers minds.

[ian rush]

As an island we stopped making shoes and pop a while ago and this industry can probably go as well. I'd prefer 2 million a year thrown at diversification e.g oat milk and an improvement in dairy standards.

I say this as a milk drinking, lamb eating type who lived for 6 years on a smallholding run by parents.

[cissolt]

27 minutes ago, ian rush said:

As an island we stopped making shoes and pop a while ago and this industry can probably go as well. I'd prefer 2 million a year thrown at diversification e.g oat milk and an improvement in dairy standards.

I say this as a milk drinking, lamb eating type who lived for 6 years on a smallholding run by parents.

I buy huge amounts of oatmilk, and would happily support Manx farmers diversifiing into oatmilk production. 

With the current wool prices making hill sheep farming unsustainable, we should be encouraging the reduction of hill sheep farming and rewilding the areas.  Paying farmers to bury wool seems like lunacy.

[SleepyJoe]

15 hours ago, Markduc said:

It always surprises me that all the green crackpots are happy to buy import’s 

food especially that has been transported 1000s of miles rather than buy local 

to save them a pound or two , but want everyone else to spend 10s of thousands on silly green schemes 

Sustainable food policy advocates & supports production as close as possible to consumption

[0bserver]

3 hours ago, cissolt said:

I buy huge amounts of oatmilk, and would happily support Manx farmers diversifiing into oatmilk production. 

With the current wool prices making hill sheep farming unsustainable, we should be encouraging the reduction of hill sheep farming and rewilding the areas.  Paying farmers to bury wool seems like lunacy.

Good luck growing oats on the hills. 

[Andy Onchan]

26 minutes ago, 0bserver said:

Good luck growing oats on the hills. 

Oats are pretty tolerant to most weather conditions but the ph has to be right.

[John Wright]

5 hours ago, Andy Onchan said:

Oats are pretty tolerant to most weather conditions but the ph has to be right.

It’s more to do with soil quality and depth, and harvesting. Where those pesky glow in the dark hill sheep are isn’t best suited to mechanical harvesting.

[Non-Believer]

5 hours ago, Andy Onchan said:

Oats are pretty tolerant to most weather conditions but the ph has to be right.

Plenty of wild oats in Ramsey.....

[GreyWolf]

Plenty of us on here have no doubt may have sowed a few wild oats in the past.

[Roger Mexico]

30 minutes ago, GreyWolf said:

Plenty of us on here have no doubt may have sowed a few wild oats in the past.

I always thought it was just an odd metaphor, but apparently wild oats are a real problem.

[Omobono]

14 minutes ago, GreyWolf said:

Plenty of us on here have no doubt may have sowed a few wild oats in the past.

be interesting to see how much   todays Budget has thrown to agriculture I would guess the number of active  sustainable farms have fallen way below 100 , 

I had a friend visit from Norway recently and he couldn't understand  why we were not developing  more forests on the marginal and hill land that was in government ownership , it would reduce our carbon footprint and provide a future timber resource , 

I think the time has come for a full review of both Agriculture and fisheries ,and where we are going for the future

there seems to more Manx registered fishing vessels around  than I can ever remember  even queenies  ,crab meat , on sale  in the shops this week , what ever happened to closed seasons ,and a chance to give the  fish stock time to recover ?

it seems like take, take, take, must be causing damage to the environment ,but I guess if there is government money by way of grants into the boats and funding for processors  then were on a treadmill thats hard to get off 

same with the creamery  and meat plant   the Island does not need all this milk  and meat , so we make cheese , but is it at a profit ? the meat plant looses money when you subtract the £2 million subvention from government 

happy for someone to provide answers or shoot me down !

[SleepyJoe]

You're quite correct

Government just get away with throwing money away because no one stands up to stop them

Too many dependent on some £££ thrown their way?

[Kopek]

We need an abattoir to deal with locally raised animals, we have one, it doesn't matter now if it is efficient, we have it! How to get the thru put to make it efficient, that is the question!

They only kill x days per week, no matter the size of the plant, how can that lead to losses? I have three bedrooms, I only use one of them. Does the abattoir not have light switches???