It’s only been a month and a half, but farmers Reita and Stan Sparks believe they did the right thing by opening a provincial slaughtering plant.
After almost 22 months since the first case of BSE was found on a farm only a few kilometres from their northern Alberta packing plant, which led to a U.S. ban on Canadian cattle, the couple realize the beef industry has changed forever and they must adapt.
“We’re happy with the way it’s going,” Reita said of their venture to turn a mothballed chicken plant into a beef slaughtering facility near their farm in Wanham, Alta.
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Called Heart Valley Processors, the plant has already moved from slaughtering beef to bison and local butcher shops are asking for their meat.
The realization that the cattle business has changed forever is becoming crystal clear.
Last year, when the Manitoba government offered provincially inspected plants $2 million to upgrade, build coolers, buy equipment and train staff, there were few takers.
The response was “very, very muted,” said Allan Preston, assistant deputy minister with Manitoba Agriculture.
In February, the government announced another $3 million to support provincial plants that want to expand or upgrade to become federally inspected. The interest was dramatic.
“We’re seeing people who recognize this is a business opportunity that will be here for the long term,” Preston said. “Now there’s a recognition this is a new and different world.”
In the past two years, few owners wanted to spend the money needed to upgrade their facilities when it seemed the border opening was just around the corner and trade patterns would return to normal.
While they now recognize that the U.S. border might not open to Canadian cattle for awhile, it’s not an easy prospect for provincial packing plants to increase their slaughter capacity.
Finding people willing to work in packing plants is one of the main problems.
“Labour, labour, labour,” said Herman Pfisterer of Meatco Sales in Consort, Alta. “We would slaughter more, but we don’t have the labour.”
Few small packing plants can compete with the high salaries offered in the booming oil patch.
“Labour is extremely hard to find,” said Merle Friesen, who operates Friesen’s Meat Processing at Warman, Sask.
His business is located just outside the town of about 3,000 people and 25 kilometres from Saskatoon, yet an advertisement he placed for staff yielded one reply in one month.
Dale Erickson of Tofield Packers in Tofield, Alta., said in the past two years it has been stressful balancing work and staff shortages with farmer demands to have animals slaughtered.
“It’s the headaches that go with it,” said Erickson, whose waiting list for cattle to be slaughtered extends until October.
New regulations introduced last July require packing plants to remove specified risk materials, the parts of the animal that would most likely contain the agent that may transmit BSE if it were infected with the disease. In cattle older than 30 months, it’s the skull, brain, nerves attached to the brain, eyes, tonsils, spinal cord and nerves attached to the spinal cord. Part of the small intestine must also be removed from all animals.
Not only do packing plants have to do the extra work of removing SRMs, they must also pay to have offal removed. For Tofield Packers, a service that was free before BSE now costs an average of $50,000 a month.
At Interlake Packers Ltd., in St. Laurent, Man., it costs $10,000 a month to get rid of offal.
Despite the headaches, the number of animals slaughtered in provincial packing plants has increased. Most plants have been able to squeeze in about a third more cattle in their existing plants without building new facilities.
In Alberta, the number of cattle slaughtered in provincial plants increased 33 percent, or 247,000 head from 2003 to 2004.
In 2002, 3,200 head were slaughtered a week, 3,700 head in 2003 and 4,900 in 2004.
The increase has been just as dramatic in Saskatchewan: 4,282 head per week were slaughtered in 2002, 4,763 head per week in 2003 and 7,981 per week in 2004.
In Manitoba, the number of cattle slaughtered in provincial plants also increased: 3,216 cattle per week in 2002; 6,191 in 2003 and 6,549 in 2004.
Some plants have opted to move into further beef processing rather than increase slaughter numbers.
Innisfail Meats in Innisfail, Alta., was one of the few provincial plants able to cash in on the provincial government grants offered for developing markets for meat from cattle older than 30 months. The money was used to buy machinery to make meat patties and the company is also looking at making meatballs, Ron Burndred said.
Because of the new equipment, he was able to process an additional 200,000 kilograms of meat from cattle older than 30 months.
Robert Fleck of H & M Meats in Grande Prairie, Alta., said rather than dramatically increase the number of cattle he slaughters, he is processing more beef beyond the traditional cuts. He’s even hired staff from Switzerland to guide the further processing.
While governments have repeatedly said they’re behind the industry, the lack of solid government funding for the packing industry is frustrating, said Rod Snyder of Ponoka Meat Processors in Ponoka, Alta., who just finished a $600,000 expansion without provincial government money.
“It’s maddening there’s no help,” Snyder said.
“I haven’t had a nickel of government money.”
Brian Renard, who owns an abattoir in Virden, Man., investigated the government support for expansion until he learned what a headache it would be.
“When it’s time to write the cheque, they run,” Renard said.
