Meatco is strategically investigating options available for the optimal functioning of its countrywide operations. Dwindling numbers of livestock units affect its abattoirs in the Northern Communal Areas. The supply of cattle to its facilities has decreased substantially despite incentives to attract more cattle, Meatco said in a statement this week. The Oshakati Abattoir has a capacity of 180 cattle a day or 47700 cattle that can be slaughtered and de-boned per year. Cattle supplied for slaughter decreased from 22 927 in 1994 (!) to only 6808 in 2003. Figures currently available for the 2004 slaughter year indicate that although the abattoir will be open for seven months of the year, employees will be working for only 94 days during that seven month period, Meatco warned.

The Katima Mulilo abattoir can slaughter 110 cattle every second day. Despite a steady increase of cattle, it still has not reached its optimum. Meatco had to work towards the survival of its business in a competitive world, the only way being to critically look at the performance of all its business units, according to Philip Stoffberg, Meatco’s CEO