Sixty years ago, Vern and Violet (‘Jean’) Walsh opened a butcher shop in Carey Park, Bunbury, and named it V&V Walsh. They then decided to make Busselton their home and purchased a small abattoir and butcher shop on Queen Elizabeth Street and a small abattoir on the outskirts of town.
From humble beginnings
Vern and Jean Walsh
Vern Walsh in front of the Carey Park butcher shop
Somehow, Jean worked serving as a cashier in the shop and bookkeeper of the business while raising five children. Vern, with the help of his brother Barry, worked between the abattoir and butcher shop before Barry purchased his own butcher shop in the 1960s.
Over the next 30 years, Vern also astutely acquired some property and farmland, including the farm that he affectionately renamed ‘Amelia Park’.
Brothers Peter and Greg joined the family business in the early 1980s. At that time, V&V Walsh was a wholesale business supplying lamb and beef to butchers in the South West region.
Peter and Greg followed the example of their parents, building the business with grit and determination as their parents had done since 1957. By 1990 the business had seriously outgrown our abattoir in Busselton, and the brothers moved to the current V&V Walsh site in Bunbury in 1993.
Since opening the current V&V Walsh complex the company has grown from its ‘humble beginnings’ into the modern, thriving business it is today.
V&V Walsh is the largest meat processor in Western Australia (2017). The site employs more than 1,000 staff and produces more than 40 million kg of meat products annually.
V&V Walsh exports high-quality meat worldwide, including being recognised as the first exporter in Australia and, in fact, the world to be granted a license to export chilled lamb and beef into China.
V&V Walsh intends to keep growing our Amelia Park brand, working with our suppliers and customers, with a mission to process in excess of 1 million sheep and 100,000 cattle per annum.
