Mobile Butcher

Grant Amount: $52,470 funded by The Dog Food Fund, as part of a Scratch x Sustainable Table partnership

Region: North East Victoria

Delivered by: Kerrupjmara Meats

Year funded: 2024

Project status: In progress

The Challenge

The regional meat supply chain in Australia is under growing pressure. Small and regenerative farmers are struggling to access suitable abattoirs, with many facilities closing or discontinuing service kills in recent years. A lack of transparency and traceability in the supply chain makes it difficult for consumers to know exactly where their meat comes from. At the same time, regional towns are seeing a decline in local butcher shops, reducing access to fresh, locally sourced meat. These challenges make it harder for farmers to meet the increasing demand for ethically and sustainably produced meat. Strengthening local processing and distribution systems is essential to supporting regenerative farming and ensuring a more resilient food system.

The Innovation

Kerrupjmara Meats, an artisan butchery in northeast Victoria, sources meat from local regenerative farmers with a strong focus on supporting First Nations communities in Australia. Led by Luke Brock, a Gunditjmara man with extensive experience in butchery and community development, Kerrupjmara Meats bridges the gap between farmers and the public, promoting transparency and ethical food practices. Recently, the organisation was nominated for the KAB Indigenous Culture Award for its Wadeye Youth Butchery Project, which equips First Nations youth from the Thamarrurr Region in the Northern Territory with butchery skills through its Bush Butcher program.

In early 2025, Kerrupjmara Meats will build a mobile butcher shop, the first of its kind in Victoria. The mobile trailer will enhance the regional supply chain for regeneratively grown meat by selling fresh, locally sourced cuts directly at farmers' markets and servicing towns without butcher shops. The mobile butcher will provide provenance-based labelling for transparency and support skill-building for Bush Butcher trainees by adding a retail component to their training.

Why did Sustainable Table and Scratch fund this project?

Sustainable Table and Scratch funded Kerrupjmara Meats as part of The Dog Food Fund because it supports First Nations leadership, equity, and sovereignty in the food system. This First Nations-led project, in partnership with the Thamarrurr Youth Corporation, is training young First Nations people in butchery, ensuring that cultural knowledge and practical skills are passed down to the next generation. By addressing critical gaps in the regenerative meat supply chain—such as the lack of small-scale processing options for farmers and the shortage of butchers in regional towns—this initiative is helping to build a more resilient and community-focused food system.

This project is also a bold step towards proving the viability of alternative food system models, with future plans to establish a micro abattoir that would create more opportunities for ethically and regeneratively farmed meat. As the first project funded through the Scratch x Sustainable Table collaboration, Kerrupjmara Meats aligns with our shared goal of strengthening the supply of regeneratively farmed meat, animal proteins, and plant-based proteins for the pet food industry.

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