In the 1970s, on the family farm in Tenterfield, a young boy named Michael Sommerlad dreamt of raising the ideal chicken.
He was conscious of the way nature helps itself — "I consider my father one of the genuine environmentalists," says Michael.
"He was able to look at his surroundings holistically, to try and work his agricultural practices with what nature was providing."
Michael spent his childhood observing the variety of characteristics across the diverse breeds of his farmyard chickens, fascinated by the way they interacted with the Australian environment.
His dream was to make the perfect chicken for Australian conditions.
That vision would see him not only breed chickens faster than his father, but become an expert consultant on chicken genetics.
And his dream was realised … until he was confronted with an industry resistant to change.
The man behind the bird
When his father was forced to sell his farm, Michael decided to join the commercial industry.
The experience was a stark contrast to the birds he raised throughout his childhood.
"It was interesting for me having that background to see how divorced modern commercial production was from that diversity," he says.
"I still recall the day I walked into that first breeder shed and was presented with 11 or 12,000 birds in a 130-metre long shed. They all looked almost identical."
Michael thought he was going to faint — "It was a violent shock to the system."
He says that while the conventional industry has fine-tuned the production of cheap animal protein for the public, he was uncomfortable with the birds' behaviour.
They lacked the natural instincts he was used to; to run, hunt and forage in the wild.
The two commercial meat breeds in Australia, the Ross and the Cobb, had been genetically fine-tuned through selective breeding to the point where they couldn't perform the way nature intended outside.
"I have a set of values and ideals around how animals should be treated," reflects Michael.
"I wanted to see optimal animal welfare outcomes, not acceptable animal welfare outcomes."
"So in the end, my wife and I decided to bite the bullet. And we started down the path of developing our own bird."
The quest
Michael travelled across Australia visiting poultry farms and hand-picking a variety of chickens based on characteristics that would flourish in the heat of northern Queensland and weather the winters of Hobart.
"There were actually nine different characteristics, and I used 12 to 15 strains of breeds from all over Australia," he says.
Like a chicken detective, Michael would examine each breed's rate of feathering, leg length and chest width.
"Diversity is the key in any sustainable ecosystem or environmental situation," says Michael. "The gene pool has to be broad and deep enough to be able to respond to challenges that we haven't yet faced."
Equipped with his genetic recipe for a perfect Australian chicken, he approached major figures in the industry.
But he says he was stonewalled.
A handful of small-scale producers embraced his vision and began raising his chickens.
But they too hit roadblocks. They were trying to improve the industry, but state regulation got in the way.
"I have seen both at a state and local level where matters of interpretation have, in the best-case scenario, slowed things down, worst-case scenario, stopped them altogether," he says.
Raised slow
Milking Yard farm in central Victoria is one of those worst-case scenarios.
Four months ago, the heritage-breed producers sold the last of their Sommerlad chickens to the public.
They were one of the first farms in Australia to raise Michael Sommerlad's chickens.
Milking Yard Farm began eight years ago, when Bruce Burton, a former air force pilot, was determined to raise chickens ethically in the forest that backed onto his property.
"We needed to find a breed or type of chicken that would be amenable to living in its natural habitat, because that's what the forest is — its natural habitat," he says.
Bruce took inspiration from France, where the Bresse chicken lives for up to 12 months, giving the bird a rich and deep taste. "It was sort of like being slapped in the face with flavour".
He was looking for birds to raise slowly, meaning they're processed at roughly 10 to 12 weeks, instead of four weeks like the commercial birds.
He was eventually put in touch with Michael Sommerlad.
"The first thing we noticed is how survivable they were in that very critical first four weeks," says Bruce.
When Bruce had tried to raise the commercial varieties, he'd lost almost half of his flock. But he only lost 4 per cent of the Sommerlad breed.
After running all the costs, while operating at small-scale, he had to charge roughly 10 times more than a supermarket bird. "We didn't even know if people would like the flavour or the taste," he adds.
To Bruce's surprise, consumers were eagerly buying his chickens throughout Victoria.
Then, Bruce ran into a problem with his processing facility — they were scaling up.
"They said, 'Look, we're growing at such a rate, we simply can't let you use the boning room,'" says Bruce. He would have to find a new facility to process his chickens.
Small-scale farmers from across Victoria say the lack of access to abattoirs is costing them their livelihood.
In the entire state of Victoria, only one abattoir will accept small-scale contracts and their automated chain doesn't cater to the variety of sizes in the Sommerlad breed.
So Bruce was at a crossroads: shut up shop, or build his own abattoir, which was going to cost approximately half a million dollars.
Victorian regulator PrimeSafe would have oversight of a facility that would cost him a fortune.
Food safety regulation in Australia tightened in the early 2000s, following an E. coli outbreak which led to the death of a four year-old in South Australia, and a Hepatitis A outbreak that affected 400 people in New South Wales.
In Victoria, the Meat Authority was overhauled and by 2003, it had been completely replaced by a new body: PrimeSafe.
PrimeSafe became the sole authority regulating the production of meat and seafood in the state.
In the eye of the regulator, small scale producers became the biggest potential risk area — because they often didn't understand the rules, or couldn't afford to employ food safety officers.
"We'd been hearing from a lot of people who'd started building abattoirs or boning rooms that the compliance requirement was terribly onerous," says Bruce.
"And that the regulator was draconian and heavy-handed and applied these regulations that were not appropriate to small-scale farms."
So, Bruce closed his business and Sommerlad chickens became inaccessible in Victoria.
Some had tried to resolve the very problem that stymied Bruce and Michael, but they say their efforts were blocked by the PrimeSafe board.
A solution
Chris Balazs is the chief executive of Provenir, a delivery service that provides grass-fed beef direct from paddock to plate.
Five years ago, along with his team, he developed an idea for a mobile abattoir to solve the accessibility problem that small-scale farmers were facing.
So he approached PrimeSafe with a proposal.
"We would [say] that we want to have a meeting. We want to build a mobile abattoir. We want to have it licensed in Victoria," says Chris.
"And I think it just was one of those hard ones — 'I don't know how to respond to this, so we don't respond.'"
Eventually, after lobbying Victoria's then minister of agriculture, Jaala Pulford, he was given a meeting with PrimeSafe who told him the problem was the legislation.
He was told that, according to the legislation, if a vehicle was used for transport it couldn't also be used as an abattoir.
"Because once there's an application for a licence, there's requirements on the regulator to provide justification for their decisions and there's a right of appeal."
So, Chris went over the border and approached the NSW food regulator. He was informed of the compliance requirements and was licensed within a few months.
He took his mobile abattoir to NSW, visited farms and slaughtered animals, before driving the carcasses back across the border for sale in Victoria.
He couldn't make sense of the inconsistency, so he continued lobbying the Victorian minister.
After several years, the legislation was amended and the definition of an abattoir was changed.
But when Chris's company approached PrimeSafe for permission to use their mobile abattoir in Victoria, he says they continued to be stonewalled.
The decision to create new categories for mobile abattoirs rested with the board of PrimeSafe.
Chris has his suspicions about their motives.
"When a board has the heavy hitters in the industry guiding what happens, a lot of people who don't get a positive outcome like us ask the question, 'Are regulatory hurdles being implemented to stop new entrants to the industry?'"
When COVID struck, Chris says his business was at risk because it was only licensed to operate in NSW.
"It was again, further conversations between our chair and the chair of PrimeSafe to say, ‘Look, there's a business on the line here. We've done the hard yards. We've changed the laws. The government's behind it'," recalls Chris.
"You know, this is starting to feel like it's belligerence against us operating."
In the end, PrimeSafe's board approved the proposal to allow mobile abattoirs.
But discrepancies remain.
"We operate in NSW and we operate in Victoria," says Chris.
"Categorically, Victoria is more expensive, [with a] more onerous regulatory [body]. I don't believe that we produce safer food in Victoria than NSW. I believe it's identical."
Chris says the board of the Victorian regulator, PrimeSafe, should have a member advocating for the interests of the small-scale farmer industry.
In 2015, Victoria's then minister for agriculture, Jaala Pulford, requested an independent review of PrimeSafe to consider small-scale farmers' complaints of "poor communication, excessive regulatory paperwork and over-regulation".
Background Briefing asked the Victorian Government why this review has not been made publicly available. A spokesperson responded that "the review was requested by the Minister for the board and left at their discretion".
PrimeSafe declined to participate in an interview or provide a copy of the review.
In a written statement, they said, "The review made 24 recommendations to improve PrimeSafe's communication, education and engagement, licensing, compliance and audits. 23 were accepted and have been implemented."
End of an era
At Milking Yard farm, Bruce prepares to pull down the sheds for his chickens.
He points to a Transylvanian naked-neck chicken. "This is Roger. Roger is sort of the farm mascot. We've had him for a long time. He goes wherever he wants, does whatever he wants. He just flies over the fence. Nothing will keep him in."
While his days of supplying meat birds to market are over, he would like to see the industry shaken up.
"We've proven that there's a market for these types of high-welfare, heritage-breed, pasture-raised poultry. People want it."
"But we've got to create incentives for production and we've got to remove some of these scale-inappropriate regulations that dictate that it's going to be hard for small guys like us to do these sorts of things at small scale and still be profitable."
Bruce was one of Michael Sommerlad’s first breeders and now, one of the last; the breed will only be available from one producer in NSW going forward.
"The fact that we don't have a unified national approach to this is some point of concern," says Michael.
"To hear that someone who had dedicated so much of his time and his resources into doing it [had to give up] was pretty poignant. I think I should leave it at that."
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