Two Alberta restaurant owners may break the record for the world’s longest barbecue and raise $75,000 for rural food banks, but they’ve already achieved their goal of raising awareness about the continuing BSE crisis.
“How much awareness has been raised is phenomenal,” said Dallas Ramey, owner of the Diamond Legends Café in Camrose.
The barbecue began Aug. 25 and organizers intended to keep it going for 177 hours, ending Sept. 1.
Ramey and his brother Kyle want to break last year’s record of 82 hours and they’re using volunteers to do it.
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Federal, provincial and municipal politicians flipped hamburgers each day on grills in front of the café. As they did so, they talked with farmers and ranchers still dealing with the fallout of international borders closed to Canadian cattle and beef.
“Everyone is gaining an understanding there is still a problem with that,” said Ramey.
“Every single politician, they were all saying the same thing – we’ve got to increase our own (domestic slaughter) capacity.”
Alberta premier Ralph Klein said he agreed to flip hamburgers to show provincial government understanding that the crisis is not over.
“The border is open and that’s good news,” said Klein. “The key is not to return to dependence on the American market.”
As of 6 a.m., Aug. 29, 95 hours into the barbecue, organizers and volunteers had sold 7,000 hamburgers and raised $35,000, a little less than half their goal for the Alberta Food Bank Network Association.
