A plan to encourage more goat breeders to supply a quality article for discerning diners and buyers in southern Australia's restaurants and butcher shops has received 'really positive enquiry', according to its proponents.
Antap International counted 85 attendees at the three familiarisation days it put on at St George, Dirranbandi and Roma, attracting everyone from producers through to local government staff and business and banking managers.
Managing director John Wallace said it was exciting to start something from the ground level and build it up.
"Where you start might not be where you finish but we're underway," he said.
The South Pacific trading business believes there is a gap in the market for a high quality milk tooth goat product, in the 18-25kg weight range, based on demand from southern ethnic consumers.
Utilising the expertise of Boer goat breeder Graham Reimers, nutrition expert Paul Pritchard, and feed supplement businessman Kim Sullivan, the quartet presented a holistic approach to meeting the specification to interested producers.
Mr Wallace said while processers were keen, a shortage of workers was a potential problem for the scheme.
"Every processor is struggling with Covid - capacity will be the issue for the next six months," he said. "We want to do it right so we're investing ahead of the curve - it shows where we'd like to head."
Consistency and quality of product are the big challenges facing the goat meat industry, which Mr Wallace said was partly because processers took what they wanted but partly because of the uncertainty surrounding what the market wanted.
He said Antap would concentrate on cartons rather than carcases, saying that he believed the carcase market was on a slide worldwide.
"We want to work with producers rather than depots and agents," he added.
One of the most pleasing parts of the process was seeing graziers commit to improving their operations, which Mr Wallace said in itself would bring them more profit.
"Whether it's 8kg or 20kg, it's a flat rate to kill," he said. "A better quality animal should get a better premium, but the market has always been an undefined product to this stage."
Roma's Josh Allen said the structure of the day and breeding ideals presented had been very informative.
He has been in goats for two years, joining 600 does and sending his product west to Western Meat Exporters at Charleville for slaughter.
He said that at this stage, he wasn't sure whether he would make any changes.
Mr Wallace said Antap was still working out its price, and still talking with processors and wholesalers.
"This is a scoping mission, there's still a lot to be worked out," he said. "The feedback we receive from these days will allow us to add more to our scoping plan."
A lot of information on feeding goats was given out at the workshops and attendees were told there would be more training sessions for participants.
The business has a 600-head weekly slaughter target, building up to 1000 head, and Mr Wallace said they could set up clusters of producers to derive supply from.
"We might expect 1000 head a month from that, not from each person, and give them a schedule," he said.
Mr Wallace said Antap would be holding similar scoping days in NSW, based on demand.
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Sally Gall
Based at Blackall, CW Qld, where I've raised a family, run Merino sheep and beef cattle, and helped develop a region - its history, tourism, education and communications. Get in touch at 0427 575 955 if you've got a story idea for me.
Based at Blackall, CW Qld, where I've raised a family, run Merino sheep and beef cattle, and helped develop a region - its history, tourism, education and communications. Get in touch at 0427 575 955 if you've got a story idea for me.
