TK Ranch Natural Meats’ strict production rules apply not only to the animals raised on TK Ranch but to other producers who supply it with beef, pork, lamb and poultry.
Colleen Biggs said the company buys regularly from six producers, although another 30 are qualified to do so in Western Canada and yet another 100 are in various stages of qualifying. The program has four main criteria:
- Food safety – Through extensive records and interviews, TK Ranch Natural Meats ensures that the cattle it uses never receive antibiotics, artificial growth hormones or animal byproducts.
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Instead of eating grain, the animals graze on pastures in the summer and in the winter are fed barley pellets, which are made from the sprouted byproduct of the malting process.
- Animal welfare – Biggs said there is a growing demand for meat from animals that consumers consider to have been raised humanely: no confinement, raised outside on properly managed pastures and handled and killed in a low-stress manner.
Dylan Biggs has become an expert in low-stress livestock handling, and teaches classes on the subject. Producers in the program are required to take such a course.
- Environmental management – Producers are expected to participate in the environmental farm plan program, fence off riparian habitat and use time control grazing to improve grassland health.
- Quality – Carcasses are hung for 21 days instead of the conventional 24 hours and are dry aged instead of the conventional wet aging process.
