A meat packing plant planned for Calgary will be built just outside the city limits.
Doug Price, a Calgary area cattle producer, meat processor and food industry entrepreneur, is a driving force in the proposed Ranchers’ Beef meat packing plant.
Along with his “49 or so” partners, Price said he struggled to find a location for the new facility after raising nearly $32 million last summer toward building a $52 million beef packing plant. He said an Alberta equity investment helped secure bank financing of 50 percent in the project.
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Zoning conflicts over plans to build the plant in Calgary’s northern industrial area delayed construction and forced Ranchers’ Beef to locate instead in the neighbouring Municipal District of Rocky View.
Settling on a location about 300 metres outside Calgary city limits has enabled the project to go ahead.
Price said his family’s Sunterra Meats facility in Innisfail, Alta., will slaughter about 350 head of cattle per day until the new Rancher’s plant opens in the fall of 2005.
Ranchers’ Beef is set up to serve as a hedge for cow-calf producers and cattle feeders looking to reduce their risk and dependence on the American markets, said Price.
“Trade policies at the whim of a lone judge, politicians looking to get re-elected. That’s what is determining my price for my cattle. No thanks. The sooner I pack them all in Canada the better,” he said.
The proposed federally inspected, 800-head-per-day facility is the minimum size necessary to be efficient and compete against the large American-owned plants at High River and Brooks, Alta., he said.
Before new rendering regulations came into effect following the discovery of BSE in Canada, large packers could boost their margins by selling the byproducts. That is no longer the case, and Price said that helps make the Ranchers’ Beef model more competitive.
Ranchers Beef plans to provide feedback so cattle breeders can base breeding decisions on the final beef product and improve cutability.
Price and his family own the Sunterra Group of food companies, a vertically integrated meat producing, packing, exporting and retailing operation.
Ranchers’ Beef investors also obtained cattle delivery options when they bought shares in the company.
“With or without the border being open, there are times when it pays to be in meat packing and times when it pays to be raising animals and if you can have a stake in both you will do better than one or other,” he said.
