INNISFAIL, Alta. Ñ Beef production is expected to start within weeks at a newly expanded facility owned by the Rancher’s Beef consortium.
A 14,500 sq. foot expansion to Sunterra Meats in Innisfail is nearly ready to start accepting cattle older than 30 months. The plant will kill up to 300 mature animals a day and the carcasses will be sent to a temporary facility north of Calgary for processing into ground beef.
This is the first phase of a $50 million plant owned by producer-investors from Alberta and British Columbia. The Price family’s Sunterra Farms of Acme, Alta. owns one third of the plant, Cor Van Raay of Picture Butte, Alta., owns another third and the rest is owned by 45 partners.
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“This staged approach will allow Rancher’s Beef to build a team and participate in the beef market in an orderly way,” said Rancher’s Beef manager Art Price.
The plant faced considerable controversy when it tried to locate in northeastern Calgary so an agreement was reached with the Municipal District of Rocky View and the province to move the proposed location about 200 metres outside of the city limits where the municipality can provide adequate water and sewer facilities.
When construction was delayed by nearly a year at the Calgary site, a decision was made last fall to expand the Innisfail facility to get beef moving.
Construction at the Calgary site starts early this spring when weather permits and owners hope to have the plant producing beef early in 2006.
The plan is to move beyond producing commodity beef and offer specialty cuts meeting customer requests. The new plant will be able to handle 800 head a day, both older and younger than 30 months, and will employ up to 360 people.
The beef is likely to appear at Sunterra Market, a chain of six high-end grocery stores owned by the Price family, but will also be cut and prepared according to customer specifications and sold to other retail outlets.
Doug Price of Sunterra said investors will supply some of the cattle and the rest will be bought on the open market.
