Air Beef Scheme
After World War II, pastoralists from the Western Australian Kimberley region sought to develop the local beef industry by encouraging infrastructure development there. Three brothers, Gordon, Douglas and Keith Blythe who owned and operated several pastoral leases in the east Kimberley[1] devised an Air Beef Scheme (also known as the Glenroy Air Beef Scheme) by which a meatworks including an abattoir, carcase freezing facilities and an aerodrome were built at the remote Glenroy Station on the Mt House lease, about 100 kilometres (62 mi) east of Imintji Aboriginal Community near Derby.[2]
Beef cattle were brought in from a 160 kilometres (100 mi) radius around the east Kimberley to be slaughtered, quartered, boned and chilled overnight, and the following day air shipments were made to Wyndham, a 290 kilometres (180 mi), 75 minute flight away using Bristol Freighter and Douglas DC-3 aircraft.[3] The beef was frozen at Wyndham and then shipped to the United Kingdom.
Gordon Blythe had convinced MacRobertson Miller Airlines (MMA) to do a trial air shipment in May 1947 when four carcases were slaughtered and left the station at 2am, arriving in Perth in good condition at 3pm the same day. The trial being successful, a company Air Beef Ltd. was established as joint venture between the Blythes, MMA and Australian National Airways (ANA) to operate the scheme, with each party putting up one quarter of the capital and the Western Australian Goverment (through the North West Development and Advisory Committee, which was headed my Russell Dumas) assisting and providing a loan for the remaining quarter. It was anticipated that the scheme would spawn a network of inland abattoirs throughout northern Australia, however this did not eventuate.[1] Plans for a similar facility at Fitzroy Crossing were shelved.
The plant had a capacity of 300 head of cattle per week and in an average season (May to September) would process about 4,000 head per year.[4]
In 1949 the Commonwealth Government passed the "State Grants (Encouragement of Beef Production) Act 1949" which allowed funding for the construction of roads and other infrastructure to support the beef industry, as it was accepted that airfreighting was going to uneconomic in the long term. The Derby Meat Company (DEMCO, "Derby Meats") was established by the Blythes and others in 1959 and from then the shipments were made to the closer destination of Derby. By 1953 the southern section of the Gibb River Road to Derby was completed and the first live shipment of cattle by truck from the east Kimberley was made. This and the completion of the slaughtering facilities at DEMCO in 1965 spelt the demise of the scheme and the abattoir was closed in the same year.[5]
References
- ^ a b "Air Beef Abattoir and Aerodrome (ruins) and Glenroy Homestead Group - Assessment Documentation" (PDF). heritage Council of Western Australia. 17/11/06. Retrieved 2008-02-16.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "Pastoral History of the Kimberley". gibbriverroad.net. Retrieved 2009-02-16.
- ^ "Bristol type 170 Freighter (Mark 31)". Australian National Aviation Museum. Retrieved 2009-02-16.
- ^ "Outback Aviation". "Flight" magazine. 31 December 1954. Retrieved 2009-02-16.
- ^ "History of Western Australia's Highways And Main Roads WA - the organisation that built them". OZROADS: Australian Roads Website. Retrieved 2009-02-16.
Further reading
- "Beef on the wing the story of Air Beef Ltd, Kimberley, Western Australia". Walkabout. Vol. 17, no. 2. 1 February 1951. pp. pp10-15.
{{cite magazine}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - John W.R. Taylor (23 March 1951). "Putting Some Beef Into It". "Flight" magazine.