New Zealand’s Alliance Group is claiming to have created probably the world’s biggest fellmongery with the upgrade of its Lorneville Pelt facility at Southland, on South Island.
Part of Alliance’s Lorneville meat processing site, which can process a daily kill of 32,000 lamb and sheep, the fellmongery has benefited from a NZ$3 million ($1.5 million) refurbishment programme. New facilities include an advanced skin washing and cooling facility, an in-line dewatering plant, an in-line defleshing unit and three advanced wool pulling machines. As well as enhancing the quality of the end product, the new equipment will reduce the plant’s chemical consumption and its impact on the environment, the company says.
Alliance operates seven livestock processing meat plants in New Zealand which together have an annual throughput of eight million lamb and sheep. The company says its investment in new production facilities amounted to NZ$27 million in 2002.
