Quality counts in the business of big beef

The Beefmaster Group’s abattoir in Kimberley can process up to 800 cattle a day. Roelie van Reenen, the group’s supply-chain executive, spoke to Sabrina Dean about how the group operates and maintains its high standards.

- Sabrina Dean

The Beefmaster Group, based near Christiana in North West, is involved in the entire beef value chain: breeding, feedlot, abattoir, and distribution (including exports) of beef products. According to supply-chain executive Roelie van Reenen, the company employs over 1 000 permanent staff at its various operations.

“The abattoir is the largest employer within our group and is also the biggest private employer in Kimberley [an hour from Christiana],” he explains.

BUSINESS STRUCTURE

The Van Reenen family has been involved in the beef industry since Jacob van Reenen arrived in the Cape of Good Hope in 1722 and started supplying beef to ships docking there.

Nearly two-and-a-half centuries later, in 1965, Van Reenen’s father, Lourie, set up a small, on-farm feeding system for his own cattle. In 1983, he decided to establish a full-scale feedlot and bought the farm Kromellenboog near Christiana for this purpose.

“He chose this location because he wanted to establish a feedlot near a secure water source, the Vaal River, and it had to be near a main road and a railway, which was critical for the transport of cattle and feed,” explains Van Reenen.

It was only after deregulation of the meat industry in the 1990s that the group had the opportunity to buy an abattoir and venture into this part of the beef value chain.

“We weren’t allowed to own an abattoir. In those days, livestock had to be slaughtered at parastatal facilities and this one, the old Abakor facility in Kimberley, was one of them,” he says.

Beefmaster purchased Abakor in 2001, and officially opened it as the Beefmaster Group’s abattoir and processing facility in the same year. The first Beefmaster retail outlet was opened four years later, and the company currently has a factory shop at the abattoir as well as several retail outlets in Gauteng.