Poaka's Micro Abattoir
A Natural Harvest of our animals on farm, low stress, provenance guaranteed.
The importance of sustainable farming practices, food miles, provenance and animal welfare is what Poaka is all about, and our micro abattoir has emerged as a vital component in our wild farmed, free range farming and production system.
Poaka's MPI approved Micro Abattoir facility, specializes in processing Pork on a very small scale, which leads to numerous benefits for both the animals, sustainability and the quality of Poaka's products. Poaka's Micro Abattoir is designed to process significantly fewer animals than traditional large scale industrial abattoirs, allowing for a more humane and less stressful experience for the pigs. We call what we do a Natural Harvest TM , as it is quiet, respectful, and as animal centric as we can make it.This is crucial, as stress can negatively impact the quality of the meat produced and the wellbeing of the pig.
What are the benefits of Poaka's Micro Abattoir?
- Lower stress and higher animal welfare for our free range wild farmed pigs
- We do not transport our pigs long distances, transport stresses pigs.
- We are processing small numbers of pigs meaning we are able to take more time and carry out the processing in a relaxed way.
- Our pigs are not yarded with hundreds of unrelated pigs. Pigs are social animals and having groups of unrelated pigs next to each other in holding pens is stressful for them.
- Higher quality pork.
- Processing our pigs in a low stress way produces higher quality pork
- Provenance guaranteed
- We are only processing pigs from our free range farm on the farm. There is no chance of having a mixup. When you buy Poaka Pork it is 100% guaranteed to be from our free range farm.
- Lower Carbon Footprint.
- Poaka does not need to transport our pigs long distances to the abattoir for processing, or have our processed pigs transported long distances from the abattoir back to our butchery. It is all carried out on farm.
- Process pigs that large commercial abattoirs wont.
- For some of Poaka's products we need to grow our pigs to a larger size. Commercial abattoirs have a maximum size limit for pigs, due to equipment, handling and time constraints. Pigs over this size threshold are not accepted for normal processing and instead "Choppered". A choppered pig has a lot of valuable meat and fat wasted due to the way it is processed. Poaka designed our Micro abattoir to handle our large free range pigs, giving us the flexibility to process larger pigs and reducing wastage.
How does Poaka's Micro Abattoir work?
- Poaka's micro abattoir is fully MPI approved and we are subject to all the regulatory requirements for processing and selling animal products in New Zealand. This ensures the safety of our products and also animal welfare.
- All our Wild Farmed, free range pigs undergo an ante-mortem inspection by an MPI approved inspector to ensure they are healthy and fit for processing.
- Our pigs are then processed through our Micro Abattoir in the least stressful way possible.
- Once processed, all of Poaka's pigs are subject to a Post-mortem inspection by and MPI approved and Asure Quality trained meat inspector. This thorough inspection checks for any issues or defects that would make the carcass not fit for human consumption. Once passed inspection the carcass is held in a cooling chiller to chill down to a safe temperature. It is then released to our butchery for further processing.
