Some of the country’s highest-quality meat will soon be harder for shoppers to find, as independent farmers are forced out of a meat processing system that increasingly favours industrial farming.

Many abattoirs are phasing out small-scale private processing, a crucial service for independent producers, with a Kyneton-based business the latest to announce it would no longer process small jobs.

In an email sent to scores of farmers across Victoria on November 28, the Chinese-owned Hardwicks Meatworks (a separate business to Hardwicks of Kyneton) announced that it would cease handling private kills for fewer than 50 sheep or 15 head of cattle, effective within a few weeks.

The decision has sent shockwaves through Victoria’s small-scale farming community. Many producers rely on local abattoirs to process their small numbers of livestock to sell at farmers’ markets, restaurants, and directly to consumers.

For shoppers, it may mean fewer choices at the butcher shop and farmers’ market, as well as higher prices for better-quality meat raised in more humane conditions.

Fourth-generation farmer Jasmine Walton, who raises pasture-fed cattle, sheep and chickens near Ballarat, says that with fewer abattoirs doing small jobs, costs are increasing.

“We have found another processor, but the price per beef carcass is going to go up from $500 to $1350,” she says.

That cost will, of course, have to be passed onto consumers.

Over the past decade, many small meat processing facilities have closed due to increasing regulation and the rising dominance of multinational corporations in the meat industry. Large overseas-owned abattoirs prefer high-volume customers, such as exporters and supermarkets.

Walton believes Hardwicks’ decision threatens the viability of small farms.

“If this continues, farmers will be forced out of business, and we’ll all end up relying on supermarket meat,” she warns.

“Given the empty shelves at Woolworths recently, people are finally starting to realise just how fragile our local food systems are.”

Farmers such as Jonathan and Natalie Hardy, who process two steers a month for their Blampied-based beef and pork business Brooklands Free Range Farms, are scrambling for alternatives after Hardwicks’ announcement.

“We’ve just signed a lease on a neighbouring 40-hectare property to expand our production and try to manage a $100,000 debt we accrued while both of us were in hospital,” says Natalie Hardy.

Annie Smithers, owner-chef of the popular Trentham restaurant Du Fermier, sources her beef from Brooklands and other small local producers.

“In my 30 years in this region, I have watched many small abattoirs close down,” she says. “The restaurant and tourism industries in the regions are dependent on small producers for quality products.”

Some farmers anticipated the squeeze and began seeking alternative ways to process their animals. Tammi Jonas, from Jonai Farms and Meatsmiths, is building an on-farm micro-abattoir near Daylesford, although it will not be operational until May 2025.

“Without micro-abattoirs, there will be no more small farmers,” she says.

The facility is being built using recycled materials at a cost of $100,000, with her husband, Stewart, doing much of the work.

“The biggest hurdle was overcoming state regulations and gaining social licence,” says Jonas, referring to the arduous task of negotiating with Victoria’s meat authority, Primesafe, the local council and neighbours.

Prominent restaurateur Alla Wolf-Tasker, owner of Daylesford’s Lake House, is furious at Hardwicks’ decision.

“It [feels] like some giant conspiracy to ensure that nothing but big agriculture is able to survive, while the government continues to show no understanding of how critical small farms are to … local communities,” she says.

Diners visiting regional restaurants are likely to see fewer free-range, heritage and ethically raised meat products on menus in future, denying them the chance to get a taste of a particular region.

In New South Wales, Cowra meat processors stopped servicing small farms earlier this year, and in Western Australia, the Dardanup Butchering Company near Bunbury gave small-scale farmers just a month’s notice in September that it would no longer process their livestock.

Hardwicks and its owner, Kilcoy Global Foods, were contacted for comment, but did not respond by deadline.