The Age Article

RAY Borda knew he had won the battle against tradition when he heard from The Biggest Loser.

Personal trainer Michelle Bridges wanted to tell the owner of Macro Meats how excited she was to discover that kangaroo meat was so high in iron and protein yet still very lean.

"She emailed to say she loves kangaroo meat and that the contestants ate a lot of it during the show," he boasts.

"If you want to lose weight or improve your health, kangaroo meat is the healthiest in the world," he claims.

Mr Borda has, almost single-handedly, been responsible for bringing kangaroo meat into supermarkets around the country, and for transforming Australians' perception of kangaroos from a nuzzling national icon into an environmentally friendly source of food.

"What we have got here is a niche business," Mr Borda says. "The only thing I had to fight against was tradition."

Fresh figures show Australians are throwing more and more kangaroo meat on the barbecue, and ordering it in an increasing number of restaurants. For the first time, as much kangaroo is being served to humans as to their pets.

For an industry that does not advertise, for fear of antagonising wildlife activists, the kangaroo meat business has grown from nothing to a significant food supplier in 25 years.

Last year, 17,500 tonnes of kangaroo meat was prepared for human consumption, compared with 1,559,000 tonnes of beef, lamb and mutton.

However, much of Australia's kangaroo meat is still exported where it can be sold as expensive game meat.

When Macro Meats started in Adelaide in 1987, it was illegal to sell kangaroo meat for human consumption in every state except South Australia.

With the help of the Rural Industry Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC), the kangaroo industry standardised harvesting and production methods for commercial sales.

Getting kangaroo meat into butchers and supermarkets has not been easy.

Mr Borda sold his first packages of kangaroo to independent supermarkets, and now sells 8000 tonnes of kangaroo meat each year through Coles, Bi-Lo, Woolworths, Foodland and IGA supermarkets around Australia.

With the help of a $1.9 million grant from the SA Government, Macro Meats is building a $7.3 million processing plant to meet demand, which is growing at 30% each year.

Macro Meats employs more than 200 people in its factory, and collects kangaroo carcasses from more than 200 harvesters.

The entire kangaroo meat and leather industry employs 4000 people across Australia and provides jobs in areas with few employment opportunities.

There are about 2500 licensed harvesters in NSW, Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia.

Every year, the Federal Government surveys the kangaroo population and sets a cull quota of about 12%. Last year 3 million kangaroos were harvested from a population of 24 million.

In comparison, around 20 million lambs, 9 million head of cattle, 5 million pigs and 445 million chickens were slaughtered in 2007-08, according to the September commodity report of the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

Woolworths spokesman Benedict Brook says customers encouraged the supermarket to make kangaroo meat available.

"We introduced (kangaroo) around two years ago following customer demand," he said.

"It is undoubtedly a niche meat and the more traditional meats such as beef, pork and lamb all sell more. However, from a small base, it is growing and becoming more popular amongst consumers."