The topic of canning more beef pops up often among cattle producers as they ponder ways to remove the backlog of fed cattle in Western Canada.
The Mennonite Central Committee, which sends food aid and other support to needy countries, sometimes is cited by Manitoba producers as one of the agencies that might be able to help with that endeavour.
However, a spokesperson for the MCC’s office in Winnipeg said that while the committee would like to be of more help to cattle producers, there is not a lot it can do.
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Paul Friesen said MCC hires a mobile cannery once a year to process beef in Manitoba, but it is available for only two and a half days and can process no more than 25 head of cattle a day.
The cannery works throughout North America and has a tight schedule, making it difficult to book additional canning time.
“As much as we would like to help producers out, we don’t have the capacity,” said Friesen, noting that total production last year when the cannery came to Manitoba was 162,000 eight-ounce cans of beef. The beef was processed in November and sent to Iraq in February. “In the whole scheme of things, we’re a very small player.”
In fact, MCC’s Manitoba arm may decide to can pork instead of beef this year because it is worried that countries that need food aid might reject canned beef because of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy scare.
Friesen said the mobile cannery also processes beef for MCC in two Ontario locations, but it would operate under the same time constraints as in Manitoba.
