In the 1970s, on the family farm in Tenterfield, a small boy named Michael Sommerlad dreamed of raising the ideal chicken.
He was aware of how nature helps: “I consider my father to be one of the true environmentalists,” says Michael.
“He was able to look at his surroundings holistically, to try to work his farming practices with what nature provided him.”
Michael spent his childhood observing the variety of characteristics of the various breeds of his farm chickens, fascinated by the way they interacted with the Australian environment.
His dream was to make the perfect chicken for Australian conditions.
This vision would see him not only raise chickens faster than his father, but become an expert consultant in chicken genetics.
And his dream came true … until he faced a change-resistant industry.
The man behind the bird
When his father was forced to sell his farm, Michael decided to join the commercial industry.
The experience was a stark contrast to the birds he raised throughout his childhood.
“It was interesting for me to have this background to see how divorced modern commercial production of this diversity was,” he says.
“I still remember the day I entered the first breeding shed and I was presented with 11 or 12,000 birds in a 130-meter-long shed. They all looked almost identical.”
Michael thought he would faint: “It was a violent shock to the system.”
He says that while the conventional industry has perfected the production of cheap animal protein for the public, he felt uncomfortable with the behavior of birds.
They lacked the natural instincts to which he was accustomed; to run, hunt and forage in nature.
The two commercial meat breeds in Australia, the Ross and the Cobb, had been genetically tuned by selective breeding to the point that they could not act as nature wanted on the outside.
“I have a set of values and ideals about how animals should be treated,” Michael reflects.
“I mean, if we’re going to eat something, if we’re going to take the life of something and eat it, I think it has to be true.”
“I wanted to see optimal animal welfare results, unacceptable animal welfare results.”
“So in the end, my wife and I decided to bite the bullet. And we started on the path to developing our own bird.”
Michael was so passionate about genetic diversity in chickens that he raised his own. (Supplied)
The research
Michael traveled around Australia visiting poultry farms and picking a variety of chickens by hand based on the characteristics that would bloom in the heat of northern Queensland and withstand the winters of Hobart.
“There were actually nine different characteristics and I used 12 to 15 varieties of breeds from all over Australia,” he says.
As a chicken detective, Michael would examine the plumage rate of each breed, the length of the legs, and the width of the chest.
“Diversity is key in any sustainable ecosystem or environmental situation,” Michael says. “The genetic background must be broad and deep enough to be able to respond to the challenges we have not yet faced.”
Equipped with his genetic recipe for a perfect Australian chicken, he approached great figures in the industry.
But he says it was closed.
“On all occasions, my approaches were baffled by unnecessary,” Michael jokes.
A handful of small-scale producers embraced his vision and began raising their chickens.
But they have also run into obstacles. They were trying to improve the industry, but state regulation got in the way.
“I’ve seen both at the state and local level where issues of interpretation, at best, have slowed things down, at worst, stopped them altogether,” he says.
Raised slowly
Milking Yard Farm in downtown Victoria is one of the worst scenarios.
Four months ago, heritage breeders sold the last of their Sommerlad chickens to the public.
They were one of the first farms in Australia to raise Michael Sommerlad’s hens.
Bruce and Ros started their farm, Milking Yard, with the desire to raise chickens as nature intended. (Provided by: Indigo Blue Studio)
Milking Yard Farm started eight years ago, when Bruce Burton, a former Air Force pilot, was determined to raise chickens ethically in the forest he owned.
“We have to find a breed or type of chicken that could live in its natural habitat, because that’s what the forest is: its natural habitat,” he says.
Bruce was inspired by France, where the Bresse chicken lives up to 12 months, giving the bird a rich, deep flavor. “It was kind of like getting a flavorful slap in the face.”
I was looking for birds to breed slowly, that is, they are processed for about 10 to 12 weeks, instead of four weeks like commercial birds.
He finally got in touch with Michael Sommerlad.
“The first thing we noticed was the survival they were in those first four critical weeks,” Bruce says.
When Bruce had tried to raise the commercial varieties, he had lost almost half of his flock. But he lost only 4% of the Sommerlad race.
After running all the costs, while operating on a small scale, he had to charge about 10 times more than a supermarket bird. “We didn’t even know if people would like the taste or the taste,” he adds.
After eight years, Bruce and Ros have to achieve their dream of raising chickens in a better way. (Provided by: Indigo Blue Studio)
To Bruce’s surprise, consumers were buying their chickens all over Victoria.
Then, Bruce ran into a problem with his processing facility: they were on the rise.
They said, “Look, we’re growing at such a rate, we just can’t let you use the deboning room,” Bruce says. He should find a new facility to process his chickens.
Small farmers all over Victoria say the lack of access to slaughterhouses is costing them their lives.
Across the state of Victoria, only one slaughterhouse will accept small-scale contracts and its automated chain does not fit the variety of sizes of the Sommerlad breed.
Sommerlad chickens are mixed breed, so they all look different. (Provided by: John Graftdyk)
So Bruce was at a crossroads: closing the store or building his own slaughterhouse, which would cost about half a million dollars.
Victorian regulator PrimeSafe would oversee an installation that would cost him a fortune.
Food safety regulation in Australia tightened in the early 2000s, following an outbreak of E. coli. coli that killed a four-year-old boy in South Australia and an outbreak of hepatitis A that affected 400 people in New South Wales.
In Victoria, the Meat Authority was overhauled and in 2003, it had been completely replaced by a new body: PrimeSafe.
PrimeSafe became the sole authority regulating meat and seafood production in the state.
In the eyes of the regulator, small-scale producers became the biggest potential risk area, because they often did not understand the rules or could not afford to hire food security agents.
“We had heard from a lot of people who had started building slaughterhouses or deboning rooms that the compliance requirement was terribly onerous,” Bruce says.
“And that the regulator was draconian and heavy and applied these regulations that were not appropriate for small-scale farms.”
So Bruce closed his business and the Sommerlad chickens became inaccessible to Victoria.
Some had tried to solve the same problem that hindered Bruce and Michael, but say their efforts were blocked by the PrimeSafe board.
Sommerlad chickens were designed to suit the Australian environment. (Supplied by: IB Studio)
A solution
Chris Balazs is the CEO of Provenir, a delivery service that offers grass-fed beef directly from the paddock to the plate.
Five years ago, together with his team, he developed an idea for a mobile slaughterhouse to solve the accessibility problem that small farmers faced.
So he approached PrimeSafe with a proposal.
“It simply came to our notice then [say] that we want to have a meeting. We want to build a mobile slaughterhouse. We want to have him licensed in Victoria, ”Chris says.
“And I think it was one of those difficult ones: ‘I don’t know how to respond to that, so we don’t respond.'”
Finally, after putting pressure on then-Victoria Agriculture Minister Jaala Pulford, he met with PrimeSafe who told him the problem was legislation.
He was told that, according to the legislation, if a vehicle was used for transport it could not be used as a slaughterhouse either.
“Our feeling was that the interpretation was created to prevent us from even being able to apply for a license,” Chris says.
“Because once there is an application for a license, there are requirements for the regulator to justify its decisions and there is a right of appeal.”
So Chris crossed the border and approached the NSW food regulator. He was informed of the compliance requirements and received the license within a few months.
He brought his mobile slaughterhouse to NSW, visited farms and slaughtered animals, before driving the carcasses back to the border to sell to Victoria.
He could not understand the inconsistency, so he continued to put pressure on the Victorian minister.
After several years, the legislation was amended and the definition of slaughterhouse was changed.
But when Chris ’company approached PrimeSafe to ask permission to use his mobile slaughterhouse in Victoria, he says they were still locked up.
The decision to create new categories for mobile slaughterhouses fell to the PrimeSafe board.
Chris has his suspicions about his motives.
“When a board has the big industry players guiding what’s going on, a lot of people who don’t get a positive outcome like us are asked the question,‘ Are regulatory barriers being put in place to stop new entrants to the industry? “
Michael traveled all over the country collecting the genetic ingredients for a perfect bird before raising the “Sommerlad chicken”. (Supplied)
When he hit COVID, Chris says his business was at risk because he was only licensed to operate in …