Maun’s Botswana Meat Commission abattoir is experiencing a business boom and slaughtering 80 cattle per day, according to the abattoir’s General Manager, Mothobi Mothobi.
He said that farmers in Ngamiland are supplying more cattle than they can cope with.
“Famers have positively responded to our call to bring cattle for slaughter and we are happy about that,” Mothobi said.
He added that the new market for live cattle in Zimbabwe has not affected them as they continue to receive cattle from farmers and are paying as much as the Zimbabwean market is paying farmers for their cattle.
Asked who they sell the beef to, he said that they mostly can it and sell to other areas outside Ngamiland as local butcheries are reluctant to buy from them on grounds that they are expensive.
“We hardly sell to local butcheries, they are saying that we are expensive,” he said.
To cite an example of reluctance of butcheries to buy from them, he said that this year, they have only been able to sell beef worth only P20, 000 to the local market, which is about only four cattle.
On whether there is a possibility of increasing the number of cattle they slaughter on a daily basis, Mothobi said that might not happen in the near future as that demands improvements to the slaughter house and training of more staff and big freezers to handle more beef.
Initial plans were for the abattoir to slaughter 150 cattle per day.
