LETHBRIDGE – When Rancher’s Beef officially opens its doors this spring, it wants to be known as an Alberta owned company offering quality from gate to plate around the world.
The producer owned company is killing 150-300 head of youthful cattle at Sunterra Meats in Innisfail, Alta., and breaks down the carcasses at a plant north of Calgary. Construction on the Calgary site is nearly complete.
While it may be smaller than Alberta’s beef processing giants, president Tony Martinez foresees a plant capable of changing faster to meet market demand.
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“If you look at us in relation to other facilities, they kill in one day what we do in a whole week,” he said at the Tiffin lecture held in Lethbridge Jan. 19.
With a less hectic pace, Rancher’s Beef can offer different packaging and meet beef orders geared to specific customer requests compared to what its large competitors are willing to offer.
The Ranchers Beef plant is being built to the most modern hygienic specifications. Plans include separate entrances to segregate staff so those working in the kill area are kept separate from the areas where the hide has been removed.
The plant is also using the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency electronic ear tags and unique numbers to provide traceability from the animal to the actual cut of meat. This could be used to show what farm the animal came from and at some point may involve genetic tracking quality so feedback can be provided to producers. Tenderness testing is also being considered as a marketing advantage.
Its sales plans are aggressive.
“We really feel we can’t be more than 45 percent reliant on any market,” Martinez said.
The plant is aiming for 35 percent of its beef exports to go to Japan and other Asian customers, 25 percent to the United States and the remainder to Canada and Mexico.
A later market could be the European Union. There is a limited quota of 11,500 tonnes allowed there but for the most part Canada does not ship to Europe because of an ongoing dispute about Canada’s use of growth hormones. As a smaller plant, Martinez said natural type beef could be found and processed to European specifications.
“We could use some of the cattle that we know are out there to service that market,” he said.
“We have to look at the carcass and break out all the parts so there is a piece of the carcass for each of these markets.”
Sunterra Farms of Acme, Alta., is a major shareholder in the plant and has established itself as a quality pork exporter to Japan over the last 14 years.
This should open some doors because the same Japanese meat buyers source pork and beef for customers.
While Canada hopes to sell 33,500 tonnes of beef to Japan by 2007, up 5,000 tonnes from pre-BSE days, Martinez does not expect overnight success in a market spooked by animal diseases and labelling scandals.
While the U.S. and Canada were shut out, Australia stepped in with grass and grain-fed beef.
“We are really going to have do some hard work to get in there because the Aussies have done a good job,” he said.
Another Canadian BSE case announced
Jan. 23 may further delay market access.
