WAMMCO

Western Australia’s farmer-owned co-operative WAMMCO has climaxed two consecutive State Export Awards, by winning the 2005 Australian Regional Exporter of the Year title at a function in Sydney last week.

Chairman Dawson Bradford accepted the award on behalf of all the co-operative’s stakeholders including its 300 Katanning based employees.

He said WAMMCO had relied heavily on partnerships with farmers at the production end to tailor their lambs to export markets, and on strong supply chain partnerships with distributors and lamb retailers in the United States.

These initiatives, together with substantial technology and procedural upgrades at the Katanning processing plant, had enabled the co-operative to increase lamb export volumes to the US by 40% during 2004/05.

Mr Bradford repeated his concern that labour shortages in regional Australia continued to hamper increased productivity in the meat industry, by limiting more value-adding of lamb product. He urged Deputy Prime Minister and Trade Minister Mark Vaile to increase his government’s quest to boost regional employment.

WAMMCO’s Marketing Manager Damien Giumelli said the cooperative’s winning submission also highlighted:

• The appointment of a Supply Development Manager, field days and a Statewide lamb competition to assist WA producers to meet the specifications for heavier grades of lamb demanded by the US.
• WAMMCO’s profit of $5.4 million for the year on a turnover of $91.9 million and payment of an initial rebate to 531 producer shareholders,
  Capital works at Katanning that included new technology incorporating mid-voltage carcase stimulation, and Viascan video-imaging to identify lean meat yields in lamb, as well as a new 1500 pallet freezer store to manage all frozen inventories on-site.
• WAMMCO’s direct investment in a US Import and distribution company marketing lamb across North America.