Workers, suppliers talk turkey

Since the company announced plans to close the turkey plant earlier this year, there have been a series of meetings attended by poultry producers, workers, interested parties from the National Union of Workers and state and local politicians to work out a way forward.

From these deliberations came the Fleurieu Poultry Association, a community owned poultry cooperative that aims to make a range of products for local and regional markets.

A meeting at the McLaren Vale town hall on Monday night discussed funding options for the new co-op, to purchase or lease Inghams' processing facility, and sought to build an active support base for the next stage of their campaign.

Wakefield Grange producer Sophie Wakefield, Wattle Flat, said there were "huge opportunities" from the proposed cooperative.

"As a primary producer, it would mean I could expand and diversify my business," she said.

Mrs Wakefield and her husband Nathen had been looking at producing poultry, ducks in particular, for some time, because of high demand from the restaurant trade.

But the 300 kilometre-plus round trip to have the birds processed north of Kapunda put them off the idea. She said a local processor would make the business viable.

"We have a state-of-the-art processing facility here in McLaren Vale that won't be used unless people get on board with this plan," Mrs Wakefield said.

National Union of Workers spokesman Tony Snelson said the closure of the processing facility would mean the loss of a specific skillset.

"At a lot of factories, the workers only look after one section of the processing, but at this facility at McLaren Vale the workers are responsible for the birds from the time they've left the truck right through to packaging," he said.

Mr Snelson was hopeful the venture could move forward.

"One thing that is giving us a lot of optimism is that Inghams hasn't put up any opposition to the idea at this stage," he said.

Agriculture Minister Leon Bignell said there was good demand from the restaurant trade for locally produced poultry.

"A lot of restaurants can't get a good, secure, organic, supply of poultry and they're crying out for that," he said.

At the meeting, Mr Bignell announced that the government would pay for a feasibility study to be undertaken on the venture. The study was likely to take between six and eight weeks to complete.

* Full report in Stock Journal, December 4, 2014 issue.