A NEW venture will mean the Endersby family at Mount Compass soon has all of the livestock supply chain covered, from farming through to retail.
As well as producing beef cattle on the Fleurieu Peninsula, the family also runs Pro-Stock Livestock and the saleyards at Mount Compass.
It is a true family business, with brothers Clint and Scott working alongside their father Kym. Their sister Alison Terry will be looking after the new venture, a butcher shop at Mount Compass.
For the past 12 years the Endersbys have run a wholesaling business, specialising in veal.
The wholesaling business sells to restaurants, butchers and the bakery trade, and also processes animals for local farmers.
“The wholesale game has been extremely tough in the past two years, on the back of high livestock prices, especially with veal,” Scott said.
“There has been little to no profit in it, so we needed to find a way to make it profitable.”
When an opportunity to open a butcher shop at the local shopping centre at Mount Compass opened up, the family didn’t hesitate.
“The centre was fully leased but a shop became available and we jumped on it,” Scott said.
“We see it as an avenue to value-add.”
As well as typical butcher lines, the shop will also sell non-traditional meats.
“We have access to camel and alpaca, and we’re also looking at crocodile,” Scott said.
“We’ll have a product of the week, to try out new and interesting lines.”
The store will also feature tributes to the Endersby family’s forebears, who started farming in the region back in the 1850s.
Meat at the Mount will officially open on January 5, 2017.
Meanwhile, the family’s weekly sale at Mount Compass has gone from strength-to-strength in recent years.
“We get a good spread of buyers to the sale, from exporters, multiple trade buyers, as well as butchers and store buyers,” Scott said.
“Having that mix of buyers helps ensure good competition across every class of cattle. For the auction system to survive you need consistency of numbers and our average numbers don’t fluctuate a lot, maybe by 100 a week, apart from the really busy times.”
