Meat plant- value for money?

[2112]

2 minutes ago, TheTeapot said:

And do what? Force even more live animals on to the Ben? They need to fix what ever is wrong up there and get all manx animals slaughtered there. Shipping them for slaughter is crap and needs to stop.

You are right in what you say. Nurse Clare banging on about aspirations. Well I’ve loads of aspirations, loads of wishes and plenty of ideas. I don’t think any of the IOMG bodies have ambition and foresight. Lots of talk and keeping people happy. This perpetual cycle will carry on ad finitum - it must be acceptable to throw money at a problem, accept it’s not going to make a profit, so if it keeps making losses, it’s acceptable if the losses aren’t high. Manx Accountancy for you. 

[Roger Mexico]

8 minutes ago, 0bserver said:

Incidentally, why is it termed 'meat plant' when it's actually an abattoir?

Presumably because they also process the meat there as well, rather than just slaughter the animals.  In British usage anyway, though in the US they seem to use 'slaughterhouse' for what we call an abattoir and abattoir for what we call a meat plant.

[0bserver]

9 minutes ago, TheTeapot said:

And do what? Force even more live animals on to the Ben? They need to fix what ever is wrong up there and get all manx animals slaughtered there. Shipping them for slaughter is crap and needs to stop.

Stop pretending we're self sufficient and just import meat from the UK. 

[Max Power]

12 minutes ago, 0bserver said:

Close the abattoir down. 

 

Incidentally, why is it termed 'meat plant' when it's actually an abattoir?

I think we need to understand what the problems are and why they are not being addressed? There has to be some strange reason that farmers are able to get better deals shipping their livestock for slaughter, especially when you consider how much we pay for meat on the island? Maybe it's Tesco and Shoprite shipping in so much meat, but surely there's a way round this, particularly as we are so proud of our independent government status? 

[2112]

28 minutes ago, Max Power said:

I think we need to understand what the problems are and why they are not being addressed? There has to be some strange reason that farmers are able to get better deals shipping their livestock for slaughter, especially when you consider how much we pay for meat on the island? Maybe it's Tesco and Shoprite shipping in so much meat, but surely there's a way round this, particularly as we are so proud of our independent government status? 

You mean stop Tesco and Shopshite from selling UK/Irish Meat? That may be a goer if the meat was good value, I don’t mind paying an extra few pence over Tesco and Shopshite if it was competitively priced, not taking the piss and holding the island to ransom.

[finlo]

40 minutes ago, Max Power said:

I think we need to understand what the problems are and why they are not being addressed? There has to be some strange reason that farmers are able to get better deals shipping their livestock for slaughter, especially when you consider how much we pay for meat on the island? Maybe it's Tesco and Shoprite shipping in so much meat, but surely there's a way round this, particularly as we are so proud of our independent government status? 

Huge management structure with equally huge wage bill?

[0bserver]

53 minutes ago, Max Power said:

I think we need to understand what the problems are and why they are not being addressed? There has to be some strange reason that farmers are able to get better deals shipping their livestock for slaughter, especially when you consider how much we pay for meat on the island? Maybe it's Tesco and Shoprite shipping in so much meat, but surely there's a way round this, particularly as we are so proud of our independent government status? 

With the wolf at the door in terms of cost of living, this would be a horrendous idea and would top many households over the edge

[Max Power]

31 minutes ago, 2112 said:

You mean stop Tesco and Shopshite from selling UK/Irish Meat? That may be a goer if the meat was good value, I don’t mind paying an extra few pence over Tesco and Shopshite if it was competitively priced, not taking the piss and holding the island to ransom.

 

8 minutes ago, 0bserver said:

With the wolf at the door in terms of cost of living, this would be a horrendous idea and would top many households over the edge

You are both assuming that it would mean dearer Manx meat? It shouldn't have to, how can meat be purchased from local farmers, shipped to the UK and slaughtered, shipped back and be cheaper?

It must revolve around economies of scale, and if the meat plant isn't processing enough throughput, it's going to always be expensive. If they were processing the majority of meat sold here, plus exports, then they become viable.

[John Wright]

26 minutes ago, Max Power said:

 

You are both assuming that it would mean dearer Manx meat? It shouldn't have to, how can meat be purchased from local farmers, shipped to the UK and slaughtered, shipped back and be cheaper?

It must revolve around economies of scale, and if the meat plant isn't processing enough throughput, it's going to always be expensive. If they were processing the majority of meat sold here, plus exports, then they become viable.

And that wholly ignores the animal welfare issue of loading live animals into transporters, travelling to Douglas, waiting around in the marshalling area, 4 hours on the boat and then onward travel to an abattoir.

Itll be a ban on livestock export that resolves this.

[Happier diner]

8 minutes ago, John Wright said:

And that wholly ignores the animal welfare issue of loading live animals into transporters, travelling to Douglas, waiting around in the marshalling area, 4 hours on the boat and then onward travel to an abattoir.

Itll be a ban on livestock export that resolves this.

That's a good point. Surely if moving live animals were banned due to the obvious cruelty, then maybe the increase in throughput at the meat plant would reduce the unit rate and make the manx meat a more viable option.

The difficulty is protecting the interests of the farmers if this were to be trialled. 

[Max Power]

8 minutes ago, John Wright said:

And that wholly ignores the animal welfare issue of loading live animals into transporters, travelling to Douglas, waiting around in the marshalling area, 4 hours on the boat and then onward travel to an abattoir.

Itll be a ban on livestock export that resolves this.

I agree with the humanitarian point John, but just banning live exports won't solve the problem alone. There has to be a viable market for Manx meat, be that here or in the UK. If it is to be the UK then the Meat Plant needs to up its game in purchasing, processing and marketing to product. There are some big issues to address!

[SleepyJoe]

The only time there has been a viable market for Manx meat was during war time with internment camps & a military presence, or at the very heights of the tourism industry

[John Wright]

2 minutes ago, SleepyJoe said:

The only time there has been a viable market for Manx meat was during war time with internment camps & a military presence, or at the very heights of the tourism industry

That’s not true. It was viable until the 1970’s, with import restrictions and the canning plant.

[John Wright]

1 hour ago, Max Power said:

I agree with the humanitarian point John, but just banning live exports won't solve the problem alone. There has to be a viable market for Manx meat, be that here or in the UK. If it is to be the UK then the Meat Plant needs to up its game in purchasing, processing and marketing to product. There are some big issues to address!

There are two options.

1. The price will be so low producers will stop farming livestock for meat.

or,

2. Through put will substantially increase, the abattoir cost per carcass will fall, as will losses,  and there’ll be ample processed meat, at reasonable price, to compete on island and sell off island.

Is the price of lamb, pork, beef, paid to IoM to producers still calculated by conformation, average price at 4 or 5 uk marts/gate price at uk abattoirs, plus an apportioned cost of processing?

[Banker]

37 minutes ago, John Wright said:

And that wholly ignores the animal welfare issue of loading live animals into transporters, travelling to Douglas, waiting around in the marshalling area, 4 hours on the boat and then onward travel to an abattoir.

Itll be a ban on livestock export that resolves this.

Totally agree, ban live exports & force the farmers to use the meat plant. It will still lose money but hopefully reduce the losses.

The high costs of being a supplier to Tesco etc in terms of governance, monitoring also mean high volumes are needed.