Exotic animals around the world can thank Wagga’s firies for their quick action to stop a fire from causing major damage to a successful local business that supplies their food and medicine.
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Vetafarm’s Bomen plant suffered what is believed to have been an electrical fault in an overhead heating box which sparked a fire, before igniting palm oil below.
“On a Sunday night it’s not the phone call that you want to get,” Vetafarm general manager Ben Mintern said.
Emergency crews responded within minutes, and while it took two hours to contain, damage from the fire seems remarkably contained.
“When you get the call obviously you have in your head how bad it could be, but no, it’s turned out to be not too bad at all,” Mr Mintern said.
The business itself is a true Wagga success story.
Started by two veterinarians 25 years ago, the idea began when the vets noticed a lack of medication and feed for animals other than dogs and cats.
“So what they initially were having to do was cobble together the medications that were for horses or dogs or cattle to try and treat the problems,” Mr Mintern said.
“Instead, they saved up their money from de-sexing dogs and cats, put it in a kitty – no pun intended – bought their first lot of packaging materials and started the business out the back of the vet clinic.”
Vetafarm now employs over 50 people, with an extra five starting this week, to manufacture pet food and pharmaceuticals for a range of exotic animals.
“Globally, but Asia in particular, we do a lot of business in the Middle East with falconry for hunting falcons. We do a fair bit of business in the USA with dog and cat products and we do a lot of business in Australia with major stores like PetBarn, plus independent stores and vet clinics,” Mr Mintern said.
“All the major aquariums in Australia use our shark tablets and our stingray tablets and our penguin tablets and our seal tablets and our dolphin tablets. Taronga Zoo uses a lot of our products as well.”
Last month, the first shipment of Australian-made hamster feed was sent to Korea and Japan.
Mr Mintern said thankfully the worst didn’t occur and despite the cleanup and investigation underway, it’s business as usual.
“It was pretty localised to one particular area of the plant which is good,” a relieved Mr Mintern said.
Thankfully, the fire hasn’t affected any Vetafarm shipments.
“The local guys – the fire department – responded really quickly, but happily that particular section of the building is fairly isolated,” Mr Mintern said.
