At the April 26 council meeting, the planning application made by Campaspe Meat Company for a pet meat facility at 194 Dunolly-Inglewood Rd was refused due to zoning issues.
While the site was previously a working abattoir between 1971 and 2015, council said the land was now in a ‘rural living’ zone instead of ‘rural industry’.
“The property has previously been used as an abattoir, however, any former entitlements to use this land in this way have expired,” the council report said.
The site was bought by the current owners in 2019 and still contains two chiller rooms, a processing building, office and staff amenities.
If approved, the business would have created 10 local jobs.
The plan was to use the site for processing (skinning and boning) of field killed and dressed kangaroos, with some additional deer and other wild game.
This meat would have been further processed and packaged at another site and used for pet food.
Campaspe Meat Company estimated it would have processed 500 tonnes of wild game meat per year, or 1000 carcases a week — half from interstate and half from Victoria.
Loddon Shire Council said it had received 106 objections and two supportive submissions for the processing site, after sending notices to adjoining landowners and advertising in the Loddon Herald.
Objections ranged from kangaroo killing being cruel, to concerns about losing tourism value in Inglewood and an increase in shooting in the local area.
In addition, several petitions were started against the idea, including one from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) which received 7000 signatures.
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