A group of farmers and butchers have set up a group with plans to reopen the Caithness abattoir in Keiss, north of Wick, to build a ‘meat hub’.

The North Coast Abattoir Group is planning to refurbish the former premises of Caithness Beef and Lamb, with an estimated cost of around £1.6m.

The slaughterhouse had been inactive since it closed in 2011, however the group stated that ‘the basics were still there’. On site there is lairage, an effluent plant, water borehole, insulation and power, but the group hoped to raise capital funds for re-installing items such as refrigeration plant, hanging rails and associated equipment.

READ MORE: Campaigning for a 'micro' abattoir for the north coast

The demand for a facility seems strong. A survey of local farmers came back with a significant interest on using it for private kills. The response suggested there was a demand for an annual throughput of at least 221 cattle, 1534 sheep and goats and 688 pigs.

Group chair, Morris Coghill, said: “We have a business case demonstrating that if the full capital costs are covered by grant aid/match funding, we can operate the plant and offer comparable pricing to our customers.

"We started with a producer survey which identified a reasonable demand, from which to launch the operation. When we worked on the business case, we established that we could run a viable operation on that basis.

"It will be a micro plant initially, but with capacity for sub-letting parts of the building to other related businesses, it has the potential to become a ‘meat hub’ on the NC500 as well as serving the local communities.

"We found it very interesting that there is a year-round demand, albeit with seasonal variations, which is probably one of the reasons why it is so hard to make the mobile abattoir concept viable.”

The group planned to initially staff the plant by bringing in contract slaughter and butchery teams, but with a medium-term objective of training and employing local people to become the permanent team. Initially, positions will be part-time but Mr Coghill said that strong demand for butchery could swiftly lead to full-time posts.

He said: “We very much want to offer apprenticeships to local people and have discussed creative ways that multi-disciplinary apprenticeships can be created.”

However, despite building momentum, Mr Coghill said he had been frustrated by the funding process. He explained: “We made several grant applications which so far are all frustrated by the fact that everyone wants to be ‘the funder of last resort’, so no-one will commit until almost the whole package is in place.

READ MORE: Mull abattoir will have to close if it can't find new slaughter staff

"Food Processing, Marketing and Co-operation Grant timescales have been totally useless to help us around this blockage. We have just been told that we aren’t eligible for Community Ownership Fund (possible £250k, plus £50k working capital) because we said there had been no former community use – a misunderstanding we need to put right. The former plant offered private kill/cutting services, which must surely be the same argument as the former clients of a community pub or shop?”

The group also looked into the wind farm community grant schemes, although had been left bewildered by ‘endless complications’ over eligibility and deadlines. They have had a positive response from the operators Dounreay power station expressing interest, with a potentially substantial contribution – however, again they need to get the rest of the funding in place first.