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The Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) was established by the newly-independent Botswana government in 1967 to be solely responsible for the slaughter and marketing of all beef exports from Botswana.

The BMC co-ordinates the production of beef from a national herd of some two to three million grazing on ranch lands covering much of the country's 580 000 square kilometres. As Botswana's sole exporter of lean beef, particularly to the EU, the BMC has changed from a flat structure to seasonal prices in order to bring the BMC in line with both EU and South African prices, where most of its beef is sold. Response from the farmers has been encouraging, with increased kills having been reported at all of the three abattoirs.

Facilities at the BMC headquarters in Lobatse have been designed and constructed as a complete and integrated complex of abattoir, canning, tanning and by-products plant to handle a throughput of 8000 cattle and 500 small stock per day. Branch abattoirs are operated in the north-west of the country at Maun, with a capacity of 100 cattle per day, and in the north-east at Francistown with a capacity of 400 cattle and 150 small stock per day.

The BMC owns a marketing subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands, an insurance company in the Cayman Islands, cold storage facilities in the United Kingdom and South Africa, and transport companies in Botswana.

Constant monitoring by the Botswana Veterinary Services allows the BMC to maintain its high standard of production. BMC is certified to the ISO 9002 quality system throughout its process. Chilled vacuum-packed beef cuts have a shelf-life of six months provided that the cold chain is maintained at a constant, specified minimum temperature. BMC also produces frozen boneless beef for manufacturing purposes with a two year shelf-life as well as corned beef and other canned beef products for export.

Since establishment in 1967 the BMC Group, besides its core business, has enlarged to include ownership of transport, property, cold storage, marketing and insurance companies.

• Official site

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