More Packing Plants?

[cowman]

There is a good article in the Alberta Express on whether we need more packing plants. The gist of the article says demand for meat, not an oversupply of cattle must be the underlying principle if new plants are to succeed, once the border opens.
Dr. Jim Underschultz, U of A, says there is actually excess kill capacity in the US and once the border opens they will come shopping! At that time it will be very difficult for new plants to compete with the large, very efficient US plants.
I also am wondering what happens to the small abbatoire businesses? It seems the rules are about to change for them and a good portion will probably be folding? Who will pick up the slack? It seems their prices are fairly high now for custom cut and wrap? I hear close to $400 for slaughter and cutting, plus I assume they get the hide? What will it cost when another bunch of them close the doors? In Red Deer Alberta, pop. about 75,000 there isn't an abbatoire anymore. They closed because the old plant wasn't up to snuff anymore and the owner decided there wasn't enough money in it to upgrade or rebuild. Is this what will eventually happen to most of the small custom packers? Will the future for all of us be meat from Safeway or Sobeys?

[whiteface]

I'm willing to give more of the small guys I think quite a bit of business. I can't seem to fight locals off most of the time for home-grown beef but I for one am a little pissy these days about how much packers are charging for customs perhaps relative to what we recieve for our cattle live. Now in finding our own markets the packers are still going to try and **** us. Absolutly cowman, $400 for a custom would be good day and you bet they keep the hide. Not only that, the one I was going to gave me a whole song and dance about new regulations and rules and they are required to take bone out and you name it they had an excuse for me going home with about 400lbs of meat off a 1400lb heifer. I don't pretend to be the smartest cookie in the jar all the time but at even 50% cutability on a properly fed heifer and even comparing to previous customs we did, my math doesn't suck that bad. A lot more to this story but suffice it to say I am desperatly looking for a smaller packer that I feel real good about. Who do you guys go to or maybe recommend? I sure don't want to lose my local meat buyers by jacking up the price of their meat reflective of what those **** artists are doing to us but if I don't I may as well sell the animals through the auction for all the money we'd get for them there. Some have asked me to sell them the animal live and then they'll do an on-farm kill. Personally, I don't want the mess and then the issue of the buyer taking all the meat comes into play which sure doesn't work for everyone. I really need to find a new packer. I live near Red Deer and incidentally, it was Innisfail that we used to go to and it was great while Joe was running it,now it's gone to hell. Any suggestions?

[nakodo]

A bit far from Red Deer but High River meats has been very good to me.

[kato]

Maybe it is cheaper to do business in Manitoba. We just had a steer done for ourselves and it cost $285.00. That includes 130 pounds of burger and 65 pounds of sausage. These guys do an outstanding job too. (That's why we got so much sausage...it's that good) The steer dressed close to 600 pounds, I think.

I haven't seen the receipt to double check the dressed weight though. That's still riding around in the glove compartment of the truck. LOL