With the price of beef skyrocketing butchers are thinking outside the square when it comes to delivering meat.
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A number of mobile butchers have started in the past two years to meet the growing demand of on-farm processing.
Mobile butchers slaughter an animal on farm for consumption by farmers where the meat is not sold commercially, while mobile abattoirs are able to slaughter cattle to sell commercially.
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Dan Sillitoe from Dan's Crescent Head Gourmet Butchery said there was demand because of the paddock to plate movement.
"You can't get any more paddock to plate than from your own farm," Mr Sillitoe said.
The mobile butcher, which is a container and a cool room is brought on farm to slaughter the beast, and is then hung for four days before its butchered and packaged up.
Further south at Wagga Wagga Brett Maxwell, from Meat Me at Yours, started his mobile business two years ago, as he wanted a change from working in a butcher shop.
"People like on farm as there is less stress on their animals, but with high cattle prices it's more affordable, plus they are getting their own stock and they know how they have grown it," Mr Maxwell said.
Chris Balazs from Provenir, which was Australia's first mobile abattoir granted a licence to operate in 2019, said the rise of mobile slaughtering businesses had been driven by the lack of meat workers, farmers unable to get contract kills at abattoirs, and the high price of meat.
"It's about 'I grow the product, I want to enjoy the fruit of my labour for my family'," Mr Balazs said.
He said one of the key principles of Provenir was traceability where every meat product sold through a retail store comes with a QR code informing the consumer where it came from and the details of the farm.
Patrick Hutchinson, from the Australian Meat Industry Council, said mobile butchers were a fairly unique service and very small.
"There is a trend out there for all types of management structures," Mr Hutchinson said.
"We are moving to carbon neutrality when it comes to meat and they (mobile butchers) will have their place, as will the many varied processors from on-farm micro abattoirs, multi-species abattoirs and abs owned by multinationals.
"People want to make sure farmers are looked after and farmers will decide how they are looked after and the service provides to them."
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University of New England senior lecturer in meat science Peter McGilchrist said demand was driven by consumers during COVID-19 who wanted to be 'closer to the food they eat'.
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