The business entity Ambleside Meats cc was registered on the 18 March 1999. After five long years of jumping through hoops and cutting through red tape approval was finally granted to build the abattoir in 2001.

Building commenced in 2003, but the finances ran out after getting 80% of the projected completed. Lance managed to convince two other local pig farmers and friends of his, Mark Robinson and Arnold Boettiger to take a leap of faith and invest in the project and to become shareholders in the business. Finally, the project was completed, and the first pig came through the slaughter line on the 22 April 2004. However, the training of staff and fine tuning took almost another month. On the 18 May 2004 the slaughter line began to run with a maximum slaughter capacity of 75 pigs per day. The slaughter capacity was again approved by VPH to increase to 100 units per day on the 25 April 2007 and then again up to 150 units per day on the 29 October 2007.

In 2011 Pidelta Farming put their Abattoir and Butchery on the market in the Dalton area as they were busy with their business buyout by Pioneer Seeds and wanted to off load their non-core assets. After much deliberation, the members of Ambleside Meats CC decided to expand the business and agreed to buy the two premiss’s in Dalton.

In 2012/2013 the abattoir had an extensive upgrade, and the throughput was increase to 240 units per day

Following on from the upgrade in 2013, it was decided to embark on the very long and tedious process of acquiring our ZA Certification. The main reason being that one of our big clients Lynca Meats was a ZA approved facility and we were supplying them carcasses at that time. The long-term requirement would have necessitated ZA Certification. We had already established a long and honest business relationship with Lynca Meats so felt that this would add value to the business.