Monchique may have a mobile slaughter unit by the end of the year. This was an old desire of sausage producers in the municipality, who are currently obliged to travel at least 400 kilometers a week to produce the traditional sausages, black puddings or hams.
The mayor of Monchique Rui André told the Sul Informação that the mobile slaughterhouse was included in AMAL's Endogenous Resources Development Action Plan (PADRE). «The application submission is for days, we are just waiting for the deadline to open. A reference was made to the investments and we included this one», he revealed.
Until the unit goes into operation, the application still needs to be approved and the vehicle and trailer purchased and assembled, but "if all goes well, we can still have the slaughter unit up and running this year," said Rui Andrew.
This mobile animal slaughter unit will cost around 400 euros, but the return to the local economy will outweigh the costs. Sausage producers, who also have their own livestock farms, “currently have a lot of travel expenses to the slaughterhouses. They take live animals in a truck and bring them back in refrigerated trucks. With this mobile unit solution, the animals themselves have a stress smaller and there are gains in the collection of blood for the production of sausages. Even at the level of finishing, instead of skinning practiced in normal slaughterhouses, pork can be singed, which gives it a different taste», explained the mayor, in statements to our newspaper.
However, the mobile unit is not just a benefit for sausage producers. “There are also hunting areas in the municipality, and this unit can function to certify the slaughter of animals in hunting areas. This means that hunting products in Monchique can now be sold in the municipality's restaurants».
Small agricultural producers will also have benefits, according to the mayor: "one day a week, the unit will be available so that anyone can take their animals there, so that they can be slaughtered according to the rules, and this allows them to be marketed, for example, in restaurants. In a larger scope, what is intended is that there is more occupation of the territory and this is gained if people are able to sell the animals they produce».
Rui André wants to make this an example to be applied to the rest of the region. “We want to encourage a short circuit between producers and sales to the public. This is the key to the county's economy. But we also want to carry out a pilot project here to expand to the entire region. If the products produced north of Via do Infante are transferred to the south, for hotels and restaurants, we will have in the Algarve one of the most sustainable areas in Europe. If we do this, it becomes more desirable to come to the countryside to live and produce».
The mobile unit will have a weekly slaughter capacity for 40 cattle, 160 pigs and 320 small ruminants, and «currently, each of the four sausage factories in Monchique slaughters 20 animals per week. This means that it is possible to take the truck one day a week to each of the production units and leave one day open to the entire population».
The possibility of slaughtering the animals in Monchique is seen with very good eyes by the producers. Evangelista Oliveira, owner of one of the county's traditional sausage factories, says that “currently, we have to go to a slaughterhouse in Odemira and this innovation would be a great benefit. Cost relief was the greatest of all. We go to the slaughterhouse twice a week, there's a lorry with live animals, and a day or two later, we pick up the meat in another refrigerated lorry. It's a very big cost».
There are about 400 kilometers per week on trips that, in addition to monetary costs, “cost” time. "We could invest the money and time in other things, like factory expansion, or invest more in distribution."
For this reason, Evangelista Oliveira leaves the vent: «God willing! The president has always had this in mind and I hope he can put it into practice, but if he says he does it, he will do it!».
Comments