Offers in the region of £1.5m are being sought for the Lurgan site of Oakdale Meats Ltd.

The abattoir premises are being offered for sale by real estate services company, Osborne King, with the site located within Annesborough Industrial Estate and extending to 1.4 acres.

It is understood that the company still belongs to Dungannon and District Co-op, which purchased Oakdale in 1974.

Farmer-owned shares

Many of the shares in the co-op remain farmer-owned, but that co-op structure has probably acted to restrict any recent investment in the company.

At one point, Oakdale was operating from three sites, with boning and cutting also undertaken in a facility in Dungannon, as well as MKL Meats in Downpartick. The Downpatrick business is now closed, and sources in the trade suggest that throughput in Dungannon is very low, leaving the Lurgan site as the main asset of the company.

In the past, the company ran a successful horse slaughter operation at the Lurgan abattoir, but was forced out of that business in February 2013 as a result of the horsemeat crisis.

Cattle slaughter

That has left it to concentrate mainly on the slaughter of cattle, both prime beef and cull cows. It currently offers a contract killing service for a number of wholesale and butchery customers, while also servicing a number of small independent butchers located throughout NI.

Throughput of cattle is thought to amount to up to 300 head per week.

However, with excess slaughtering capacity in NI, it is a very competitive business, and obviously the shareholders have now decided that it is time to cash in on their asset.