Page 22 - Food&Drink Magazine August 2019

MEAT, FISH & POULTRY
The provenance of the cow
Take a farmer, a vet, a marketer, a barrister, and a chef, all passionate about animal welfare and the provenance of the meat we eat. The result is Provenir, Australia’s first mobile on-farm abattoir. Kim Berry spoke with co-founder Chris Balazs.
ON 20 June, at a farm in NSW’s Riverina district, Provenir became the first on-farm licenced abattoir in Australia. “We realised our dream of being able to produce high welfare beef,” co-founder Chris Balazs says. The company is the only one in the country allowed to process meat on a farm and then commercially sell it to consumers, chefs and retailers.
Provenir’s vertically integrated, on-farm processing technology is designed to improve animal welfare, progress sustainable farming practices, and guarantee full traceability, provenance and excellent meat quality. It has been five years in the making and raised more than $1 million in an initial equity call.
“Quite simply it’s an abattoir that resides in a semi-trailer. It’s a mobile process unit that goes to the farm,” Balazs says.
“We went with a WA engineering company through tender for the fitout but a lot of the process itself is the same as any other abattoir. The unique value proposition is that we do it on the farm so there is minimal stress on the animal and
therefore a better quality of beef. “There is a clever design, but the process we have to go through
has all the same steps and assurances for food safety, training, and everything else an abattoir has to meet. There’s no special dispensation,” Balazs says.
There are three people within
permits and those needed to meet all the national heavy vehicle road regulations, including state and councils, was not without its challenges. The road regulations we had to comply with were almost as challenging as the food ones,” Balazs says.
code, so consumers can trace the product back to the farm the animal came from.
During the trial phase, Provenir provided samples to some of Australia’s top restaurants and chefs. Consistent feedback has been how the tenderness, flavour and juiciness of the meat is unparalleled. “We are getting this experiential feedback, so now we are looking at the science behind it. We know these animals aren’t stressed, they’re not dehydrated from transportation and they’re not experiencing repeated adrenaline and cortisol spikes.
“But we want scientific evidence to really cement the credentials of on-farm processing from an animal welfare protocol, biosecurity and meat quality perspective. We’re working with the Future Food Systems CRC with Murdoch University to really find out what the scientific differences are,” Balazs says.
In the next six months Provenir is planning another capital raise, aiming to fit out another five units to be sent around Australia. ✷
“ People enjoy different types of wine, we can see a time not too far in the future where people will be knowing they’re eating hereford, or angus or short horn.”
the unit and one outside. And one inside always has to be a meat safety inspector, he says.
“Some of the biggest challenges were around the engineering and it took longer than what we wanted it to. Resolving how to work in the confined space of a truck took some time for us to get right.
“It was all about the learning curve. Ensuring we can guarantee OH&S, animal welfare and food safety is maintained inside a truck is one thing.
Then factoring in necessary
“The resilience and adaptability of the founding team has been quite extraordinary.
So many unforeseen things
have hit us and they have
always found a way around it
and kept moving forward.”
Balazs told Food & Drink Business a bold part of its business plan is to develop the terroir of beef. “People enjoy different types of wine, we can see a time not too far in the future where people will be knowing they’re eating hereford, or angus or short horn.”
All their meat is sold with a QR
22 | Food&Drink business | August 2019 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au