Online Auction: Game Changer In South Africa's Pork Market

The online trading platform, Trigga Trader, is disrupting the way in which pork is sold by enabling farmers to sell their produce to the highest bidder. Walter Frey, the founder of Trigga Trader, spoke to Glenneis Kriel about the advantages the platform offers to both buyers and sellers.

Walter Frey has set trends throughout his business career. In the late 1980s, after opening a butchery, Frey’s Meats at Cato Ridge near Durban, he discovered that there was a hierarchy at the Abakor abattoir, as government controlled and ran auctions.

“These auctions drew over 200 participants at a time, and I was made to understand that I was very low in the pecking order, so had to wait for my allocated turn before placing a bid,” he recalls.

To overcome this problem, he started buying cattle on auction, and negotiated what became the first contract slaughter agreement signed with Abakor.

“Up until the early 1990s, all carcasses were sold via auction, so you had to bid for carcasses even if you’d supplied the livestock to the abattoir. The whole system changed five years after I successfully implemented contract slaughter, precipitating the demise of the Meat Board. Abakor later became the first government enterprise to be privatised after the 1994 elections,” he says.

FROM BEEF TO PORK

At about the same time, Frey moved into pig processing, but had trouble getting hold of pork.

“The industry was dominated by a couple of big processors, so farmers were afraid of losing quota contracts if they supplied smaller players,” he says.

Frey bridged this problem by buying uncastrated boars.

“All the major buyers required boars to be castrated within a week after birth to prevent boar taint. But the problem only develops after 21 weeks, so I agreed to take uncastrated male pigs before this age.

“Producers liked this, because it helped to simplify on-farm management practices. Young boars also grow quicker and grade better than castrates and gilts.”

In addition, unlike the big players, he did not penalise farmers who sold him pigs weighing more than 65kg.