AJ Bush Calls Time On Riverstone Plant In Face Of Housing Growth

Family and Australian-owned retail and wholesale butchers and meat by-product rendering company, AJ Bush & Sons is winding down its Riverstone protein recovery plant after 70 years, due to encroachment and a difficult economy.

Head of Rendering at the plant’s operating company Bush’s Proteins, Cameron Bush, said a built-up of residential development and the impending release of land in the area for more housing make it impossible for it to remain.

“The facility in Sydney’s north-west is now losing a substantial amount of money,” Mr Bush said.

“In fact, aggregation of by-products alone at the Riverstone site is now costing the business up to $100,000 per week.

“No family-owned business can sustain that for an extended period of time.

“These financial pressures have only increased since we voluntarily reduced operations in December last year, due to urban encroachment and resident concerns about odours.

“Regrettably, about 30 plant employees will be made redundant, along with impacting some subcontractors who will lose our business after working with us for many years.”

All AJ Bush’s collection, aggregation and processing will be phased out and cease by the end of May, and the site’s processing equipment will be decommissioned and removed.

“It’s a difficult decision for a family company to make as we’ve been a part of the community since the 1950s, but Riverstone is no longer a semi-rural fringe suburb,” Mr Bush said.

“The tide of urban development and some tough economics have made the decision for us.

“A handful of staff will be retained at Riverstone to manage the wind down and decommissioning of the site.

“All existing sponsorships we have with local sporting clubs, communities services and agricultural organisations will be honoured.”

Mr Bush said there would be no impact on other parts of the group, and some of the processing equipment could be utilised at its other meat by-product protein recovery plant in Beaudesert, Queensland.

Bush’s Proteins has been collecting meat industry by-products free-of-charge from retailers and processors in Greater Sydney and NSW surrounds for many years.

With the plant no longer operating that service will undergo a staged cessation from mid-May.

The company has spent almost six months looking at other business models for the collection service, including charging a fee for pick-ups, but this has been found to be unviable in the current economic climate.

The processing site became one of the first in Australia to install covered anaerobic ponds to capture biogas in the early 2000s which allowed it to convert from coal-fired boilers to natural gas and biogas.

This continues today and before closing, the plant was using biogas in offsetting over 10 percent of its gas consumption.

Rendering has been one of the leaders in Circular Economy business models, taking animal by-products and returning protein, fats/oils and biogas back into the economy.

Bush’s Proteins will continue to work with the Environmental Protection Agency to responsibly manage the wind down.

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• Local Business / Economy