The Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) Pig Group has sought assurances from JBS Australia that Victorian pig farmers will still have access to the same processing services under its proposed acquisition of Rivalea Holdings.
VFF Pig Group President Tim Kingma said Rivalea has a key pork processing facility for independent pig growers at Diamond Valley Pork’s Laverton site.
“The Laverton facility provides essential processing services to many Victorian pig farmers.”
“The VFF will continue working for all Victorian pig farmers to ensure any potential acquisition does not impact access to the operations needed to sustain this more than $250 million dollar industry,” Mr Kingma said.
The VFF Pig Group Committee has recently initiated talks with JBS Australia’s Head of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs, John Berry to convey the importance of maintaining the current services should the acquisition proceed.
“Mr Berry assured us they will continue to provide service kill under commercial arrangements at Diamond Valley Pork.”
“We have been contact with the ACCC on the proposed acquisition and ask them to seek similar assurances from JBS,” Mr Kingma said.
Rivalea also has a bio-secure pig production processing facility at Corowa, but this facility does not offer third-party pig for processing.