honest packer?

[whiteface]

I need some feedback on where all of you are going to get your animals processed. Good bad and ugly experiences are most appreciated. Who are the smaller packers that are "stealing" your meat, giving you the wrong animals back, skimming off the top, charging a fortune for road kill and then taking your good animal for resale? Anyone out there have an local packer they are really happy with? Or are most of you going the route of on farm kills with no ispection. Nerves where are you? I always appreciate your knowlege on the meat cutting industry. Cowman you're a critic, where do you get your meat processed? How do you like Ron at Innisfail packers? I really need to find the best packer out there and the input here would be invaluable. Thanks guys!

[nerves]

Still here whiteface I would suggest driving out and talking to each processor try to see who you connect with. There is Rocky meats under new management their waiting list was not to long.(out of rockymountain house)Baiers meats out Red Deer along with Nossack fine meats not sure if they do custom orders though. Y-B meats out of Penhold long waiting lists to. Innisfail meats is another. Olds collage is another one to look at. There is supposed to be a not to bad one at Crossfield so I have heard. If you are looking at direct marketing do lots of homework before you jump in I would hate to see any of us lose more money at this stage of the game. I would suggest know the product you are trying to market. Selling beef in Red Deer is completly differnt than selling beef in Calgary or Edmonton. Good luck and ask lots of questions the learning part of this marketing thing never seems to end.

[cakadu]

Unless things have changed, Nossack does not do any killing - they do further processing i.e. black forest ham. They are also a federal plant, so unless your product is killed in a federal facility, they cannot do any processing for you.

Beiseker Meats is another option and it could be the one at Crossfield that nerves was referring to.

The only thing I would add is to decide what it is you want to deliver to your customers and then find the processor that can do it for you in the most economical manner.

One suggestion to help you determine how and what you want to value-add is to talk with the Protein Team and/or the entrepreneurship team at Alberta Ag. There is a quarterly publication that they put out that helps direct marketers. The Alberta Direct Marketers is another organization you might want to check out for help.

[cowman]

Whiteface: Y-B meats west of Penhold have a good reputation as a quality packer, but they are fairly swamped as he does lots of elk and bison. A nice new building.
Won't comment on Innisfail packers...my momma always told me "If you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all!"
I thought Bently had a pretty fair abbatoire? Seems to me that is where Hovens get all their organic grass fed beef done?

[cowman]

These small packers are busy as bees and yet they seem to keep closing their doors. I suspect the idiot government has made it so difficult to comply with its various regulations that most of these operators are just throwing up their hands and quitting?
And the whole thing is such a joke, because once a food company can't operate here because government regulations make it almost impossible, what happens? Well in comes the garbage imports! Probably from some dirty old hole that has no rules or regulations!
Here is a novel idea? If food safety is the responsibility of the government...then how about the government pays for the darned upgrades that they demand?
The darned governments rules and regulations are starting to get out of hand! Most small businesses spend way too much time filling out government paperwork and running around trying to comply with all the new government garbage that comes down the pipes everyday! I think both the feds and the provinces need to fire about half the people who work for them! That way the other half might not have so much time to harass the people trying to make a living and paying the bills!

[grassfarmer]

Cowman I think Hovens use YB in Penhold actually - they sounded the best outfit to me but as of a month ago they were booked solid well into November. I tried Ponoka meats and was not sure of their service - have two cows going next week, one to Ponoka and one to Rocky Mountain House as they have a very good reputation. We'll decide after that who we stick with.

[les]

riverside packers in drum is good.

[whiteface]

Thanks so much for the feedback guys. Innisfail worked just fine for me while Joe had it, forget it now. Even if I get my same animal back it sure won't be all of the animal. Ponoka I think tries really hard but are very unorganized ( I had a kill date booked, got there, they were about 10 head over their kill capacity that day and sent me home! ) I live an hour away in Olds! I've had animals processed there before and "got all the meat back" that I "should" have but I am so sure it was sc****d off Highway 2 and not the same one I took in. Keep that experience in mind grassfarmer and really be conscious of what kind of animal you are taking in and what the meat tastes like when you get it back if you're going there. I would sure like your opinion as well once you've had your animal processed...please keep us up-to-date! I've heard only good things about Drumheller, it's a hike for me but may be worth it. He's booked until Sept. YB in Penhold is a January booking now. They must be good but my steers will be overfat by that time. I may have to arrange regular booking space with them. Innisfail is not too surprising, got the shortest wait time of anyone out there now, wonder why no one goes there anymore ( hear the sarcasm in my typing?). Nerves, I'm like you, have been selling meat out of my freezer for about 4 years and recently the demand increased ( people really liking our product ) but the problem is getting regular kill space and just recently it seemed that I never seemed to be getting the same animal back (had some complaints on the meat, it's happened only rarely or not at all in the past). Or even getting all of the meat back for that matter and of course the people I re-sell to need consitant quality product or they sure won't keep buying from me. It's frusterating as hell to feel like I can't trust my packer and I would sure love to just take the blame myself...( you know, maybe I just didn't feed right or maybe my scale was off when I weighed the steer just before it went in ) but these "accidents" have happend a couple of times in a row now and without being really concieted, I mean this isn't my first rodeo, I have some experience at quality beef and know at least a little of how to feed, finish, grading, cutability and how my customers rate just about each and every piece. Anyway, didn't mean to get real long on all of you, again, thanks so much for your experinces. I'm not sure exactly what I'll do with the ones that really need to go right now but I'm thinking whether I establish a regular relationship with Penhold or Drumheller, I may have to buy shares or book months in advance to keep the meat flow going. Anything else y'all want to tell me is welcome! Thanks again!

[whiteface]

Had a chat with our guy in Crossfield today. No kill floor, only hang and cut.He has a line on a trailer however which sounds very interesting. Says it is a bit of a prototype that is up and running in Washington State. Kill the animal, or animals on site (feedlot whatever), skin and gut inside the trailer with cooler room for a number of head for transport to processing plant. Inspector included! Down the road kind of stuff (pardon the pun) but something I hope more people look at.

We kill over at PureCountry meats at Strathmore. No idea what their waiting list is like, but probably like everyone else these days. We take our carcasses on the rail so pretty hard to steal from us. Besides, who else would want those little bitty Galloway carcasses anyway.

Good luck Whitey.

[cakadu]

Whiteface my experiences at Innisfail have been just the opposite of yours - more problems with the old owner versus the new one. We deal in lamb, so it's not quite as easy to get things mixed up - not so many going in. I guess it's what one got used to, but my experiences have been good thus far. I'm sure that all packers have some difficulty at one time or another. Right now one also has to take into consideration that these guys are busier than they would ever have guessed they would be. They likely don't have enough staff, enough experienced staff, enough room to do all these animals in a day and store them, along with whatever else may come along. I'm not excusing their mistakes, but it is likely a double-edged sword for them right now.

Remember that not all your customers may know how to cook the meat that you provide to them. If it is leaner than what they get out of the store and if they cook it the same old way - it's like shoe leather and it's not their fault. If they have been buying from the store then switching to something else will be a change for them too. If they expect it to taste a certain way and it doesn't, then that needs to be explained to them.

Again, I can only relate it to the lamb that we sell. Our lamb is very mild tasting because it is hair sheep and not wool sheep. There isn't the "strong" taste that some people relate to lamb. We very often get the "grandpa ate mutton in the war story" and it sometimes will take a lot to convince people to try it, but once they do they are pleasantly surprised by it. One of the best compliments that we got was from a customer who said that they had run out of our lamb, went to the store to buy some and couldn't believe how bad the stuff in the store tasted. They will now wait until we have some fresh stuff ready in the fall.

You get all kinds of stories from customers and even though they are always right, you sometimes have to wonder.

A friend of mine worked in the meat department at one of the major supermarkets and people actually brought a bag full of sparerib bones back to them and said that the meat was tough. Funny, but all the meat was picked off the bones yet it was tough. With the customer being right, they had to refund the money.

You will find as you get more and more into the direct marketing that there will be more and more things that you have to deal with. We have seen a lot in the years that we have been doing this - we sold a lamb to someone that was a "chef" and we told them how to cook it, they didn't listen and it was the meat - not them.

Bottom line is that the bigger you get the more you will encounter as people are people and we have to keep the customers satisfied.

[whiteface]

Thanks for wishing me well rpkaiser and cakadu, I sure appreciate those comments, I can relate to so many of them. It's nice to feel that some people "understand" you. These days while the States won't take our live animals, my regular meat customers are a big part of my life and it means a lot to me that they are happy with the product. I'm a big believer in "the customer is always right" and work very hard to put actions to their comments. I know that the packers are busy, I just sure hope that they all realize that some of us "dumb farmers" aren't all that dumb and we do help keep them in business and yeah, every once in a while we talk to each other and together have the ability to blow dishonesty wide open. Thanks again!

[nerves]

Grassfarmer we just got back seven fat animals from Rocky they did not do a very good job in the trim department in fact we had to discount some on the meat to get them sold. I do not know if Rudey did the triming or someone else. Rudey and Yvo at Y B used to work together for a few years so I know he knows better would like to hear how you make out. Personaly we use YB quality meats they trim well and package well. Plus I have a very good friend that works there to.

[cowman]

There is a thread down the list aways where some guy is looking for a place to set up a shop. Maybe you "direct marketers" should get together and see if you can help him out? We need some more enterprizing young butchers in the business and this guy seems willing to give it a whirl?

[masterbutcher]

HI every one I have a few things to say.First I think if you want to advance in this farm marketing you should get over the fact that you are geting the wrong meat back .That is old thinking it is now 2004 and i think things have changed a bit i have worked in most of the butcher shops around here and none of them steal meat .Now I am not saying that they dont make mistakes everybody makes mistakes now and then any were mabey when you take your new truck in to get service mabey they take parts from your truck have you ever thought of that?You have to remember that these places have people that work for them and if they ever saw anthing like that some one could get in a lot of trouble there is not enough butchers out there any more so it is very tough on these palces to operate so the next time you go and pick your meat up mabey give thanks to the butcher that cut up your animal.And one last thing dont take your animals in to inisfail packers it is the worst place and they have a bad mold problem very bad.The best palce you could go to right now is YB in penhold until I open up in olds thanks.