Further Meat Processing Facility Licence
What you need to know about a Further Meat Processing Facility licence.
Summary
- A further meat processing facility processes, packs and/or stores meat or poultry for human consumption.
- The law requires your business to have a licence to process and pack meat to sell.
What you can do with a Further Meat Processing Facility licence
Get a Further Meat Processing facility licence to:
- process meat products to sell for human consumption by wholesale
- store meat products to sell for human consumption by wholesale
- pack meat products to sell for human consumption by wholesale
- manufacture smallgoods to sell by wholesale
- process runners and casings to sell by wholesale
- retail meat products originating from the further meat processing facility
- render prime tallow.
Your Further Meat Processing Facility licence allows you to operate the following if all the meat and by-products come from your further meat processing facility:
- retail butcher shop
- prime tallow processing facility.
PrimeSafe issues this licence under the Meat Industry Act 1993.
What you can’t do with a Further Meat Processing Facility licence
You cannot:
- slaughter animals (get an Abattoir licence).
- slaughter poultry (get a Poultry Processing Facility licence)
- process, store or pack pet food (get a Pet food establishment licence)
- transport meat or seafood (get a Meat Transport Vehicle licence)
PrimeSafe licence conditions require all meat processing facilities to comply with relevant Australian and Victorian standards and guidelines. For:
- Fresh meat and smallgoods see the Australian Standard for the Hygienic Production and Transportation of Meat and Meat Products for Human Consumption (AS 4696:2007).
- Runners and casings see the Australian Standard for Hygienic Production of Natural Casings for Human Consumption (AS 4466:1997).
- Packaging ready-to-eat meat products see the Australian Meat Regulators Group Guidelines for the Management of Listeria.
When we give you a licence, you need to meet the licence conditions. Get help from us if you don’t understand your licence conditions.
There are things your business needs to do before we can give you a licence. To learn about preparing your business before you apply and how to apply, read Apply for a licence.
Further meat processing facilities are audited in the first week after opening and then every week until their Quality Assurance Program is fully implemented. Further meat processing facilities then have audits once every year.
Further meat processing facilities that manufacture smallgoods have audits every six months.
Audits are conducted by a PrimeSafe approved auditor.
Find out more about Audits.
There is an application fee when you apply for a new licence.
There is an annual fee to hold a licence that you pay each year in June.
There are other charges when you hold a licence with PrimeSafe.
You may have to pay a fine if you do not meet your licence conditions.
PrimeSafe follows the Department of Treasury and Finance’s guideline for setting fees and charges.
Our current fees
You can calculate the annual fee for a further meat processing facility by estimating the annual throughput of the facility. Throughput is the weight (tonnes) of material brought into a facility for processing.
The current fee schedule for a further meat processing facility is:
Annual Throughput | Application Fee ($) | Annual Fee ($) |
Up to 250 tonnes | 381 | 761 |
251 to 500 tonnes | 441 | 881 |
501 to 2,500 tonnes | 884 | 1,767 |
2,501 to 5,000 tonnes | 1,327 | 2,654 |
Over 5,000 tonnes | 1,613 | 3,226 |
When your facility is supervised by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry you pay no more than $1,098 to apply for a licence and $2,195 each year. Otherwise the amount you pay increases as your throughput increases.
Calculate the total cost to apply today for a licence
To apply for a Further Meat Processing Facility licence you need to pay:
- the application fee (paid once only)
- the licence fee (paid when you first apply and then every year in June).
The licence fee you pay when you first apply is calculated on how much of the year has already passed (called pro-rata).
Use the Fee Calculator to see what you will pay today to apply for a licence.
All PrimeSafe fees are GST exempt so we will not give you a tax invoice when you pay.
Fee Calculator
Please enter the estimated annual throughput of your facility below.
Standards and guidelines that apply
Use this standard when you are processing, transporting and/or storing meat and meat products for human consumption.
Use this standard when manufacturing packaged Ready to Eat (RTE) meat or purchasing RTE meat products for slicing, portioning and packaging for sale.
Use this standard to process, store and transport natural casings for human consumption.