Does Generic Advertising Benefit Producers?

[perfecho]

As for small kill/butcher shops, I had approched the one here in Leduc, (was operating with a kill floor up to about a year ago...),always busy and sometimes had to book a year in advance to have animal processed. I personally beleive there is going to be a growing market in "local/100 mile" and "know where your food comes from". After just a bit of consultation with owners, their feeling was that the new levels of standards were just too costly to achieve and would not justify refurbishing on this scale of processing. This is a unfortunate to say the least.
Can anyone tell me who sets these standards and where do they get their input? I sometimes wonder if multinationals have input into these standards and can set the base so as small operators would have a hard time.
With bio security, food issues, etc., it amazes me that smaller, local processors would be limited to a small area, and a smaller number of effected clients, if there was a problem. Currently, if there is a problem, and recalls are in order, it usually effects a good portion of North America.
Think of the cattle markets if Cargyl had to shut down for a month due to a disaster........

[grassfarmer]

Farmers_son, on one hand you talk of partnering with Cargill and Tyson in a joint venture and on the other you lay out the current situation accurately - ie "I would like them to pay a fair price for live cattle.... Four years after BSE we remain completely dependent upon restricted access to the U.S. market to provide competition for live cattle in this country. We can advertise till the cows come home but we will not get paid a fair price for our live cattle without competition." How do we get from the current situation to some type of profit sharing partnership with these outfits? Would they ever want voluntarily to give up any of the profits they currently earn from having complete control of the processing sector?

Perfecho,The story you relate is all too familiar, small local plants being very busy but still unable to meet the costs of the new regulations. The local custom kill plant we have worked with in the past has complied with all the upgrades and have now upped their charges to cover the costs. They quoted us close to $600 to butcher a 660lb beef into quarters this fall - it is just too much of a rise and we have moved elsewhere.I have sympathy with these operators, like many of these family owned outfits they are run by European immigrants who are prepared to work 14-16 hour days and they have generations of skill in butchering which is hard to find in North America. The regulations that cost them so much were of course developed by Governments having their ear bent by the big players - I understand that the cost of Government inspection is crippling because it is based more or less on one inspector per plant regardless of whether it kills 20 head a day or 2000 a day. In addition the "Alberta advantage" is hurting these plants - the butcher told me what his October power bill and labor bill were last year and there was clearly no way a small turnover plant could afford them. So at the point where we need these type of operations most they are being driven out of business - where do we go next?

[rkaiser]

Back to the fall ABP producer meetings I guess Iain. This time with a resolution to send some of our checkoff dollars to help the small packer.

New rules and grandfather clauses perfco - the Tyson plant at Brooks has more rough concretet showing on the floor than any small plant in the province - yet they are allowed to continue to operate as long as they keep a minor renovation project on the books.

Pathetic bent over position that our industry leadership has taken and it amazes me daily how those who have let this happen can keep ignoring it. More power and control every day with only more ass kissing in sight.

Has anyone taken the lead and offered suggestions to ABP in their new campaign to hear from the producers. Radio ads all the time. Here I thought that was what fall producer meeting were for when voting at the producer meeting level was ----- what------- repelled at the AGM.

All that I can say is that BIG C has the ear of the government and changes are a comin. In fact - has anyone paid any attention to the turmoil at the ABP castle these past months - looks like it's crumbling almost as fast as the Rcalf castle.

[cswilson]

There are portable abbatoirs that can be licensed aren't there-couldn't a kill crew move from place to place on a regular schedule and then have local shops to break and merchandise the product. We had a large local ranch build a kill floor and shop about 15 years ago but ran into troubles because they built to pass inspection to ship interprovincially. There are probably 7 or 8 places that cut up private meat up here and its a long wait to get into any of them. I do know most small towns would bend over backwards to bring another small business to town.

[grassfarmer]

Come on Randy what hope do we have of passing such resolutions? Remember the ABP is not in the business of picking winners and losers, they insist it must all be free enterprise in the free market economy and no subsidy given to any sector of the industry.
This conveniently ignores the fact that these same rules have successfully handed control of the processing sector and millions of dollars of tax payers money to two US based global corporations.

cswilson, I don't know about some of the newer mobile outfits but I spoke to one in my area back when we started our beef retailing business and they were unable to produce inspected beef. Either the mobile part or their own cutting plant was not up to the inspected standard - I think the mobile kill was and their plant wasn't or the problem may have been in the transportation between the two. Either way the end result was they were actually more expensive than a local plant producing inspected beef so it didn't make much sense to use them. Apart from the stress and cleanliness issue - I would prefer to kill out in the pasture but rules deem that is not acceptable, far better to do it an a large plant that due to throughput can not be kept clean.

[cswilson]

There's some built in the USA that pass USDA standards or whatever not sure if they are close to ours or not.

[farmers_son]

Grassfarmer: The point I was trying to make was we need to consider all options and think out of the box. It is not an idea that I am promoting in any way. I do think that if the reasons we were not building producer owned packing plants was over fears that we could not compete with Cargill then one solution is to look for ways to partner with Cargill. E.g. Cargill's distribution and packing skills, our ability to develop and promote a brand plus we have the ultimate control over where our cattle go. We own the primary ingredient. Right now we are giving away our brand identity and it is questionable if we receive any financial benefits in return. Anyway it was just a way out there idea.

Would Cargill voluntarily give up some of their profits? I think there is reason to believe that the future profitability of the packing industry in Canada is threatened. COOL is a threat to our entire industry including the packing plants if we do not successfully challenge COOL under NAFTA. Bio fuels has the potential to dramatically change where cattle are fed. If our cattle feeding industry moves south of the border one of our two packers may throw their packing plant in a suitcase and taking it south.

What may end up driving producer packing plants is not the great profitability that they might enjoy rather the need to retain the ability to slaughter at least a percentage of our cattle at home and the need to create fair pricing for our live cattle. We remain way too dependent upon access to slaughter facilities on the other side of an international border to get anything resembling a competitive bid for our live cattle and it could get worse. Eventually we may be forced to actually do something about it.

[rkaiser]

And the time is coming quickly farmer_son. It looks more and more likely that the Ranchers Beef plant at Balzac may be in squeezed out in it's present form. What an opportunity to see if we can get any support for producer ownership before one of the two big boys makes a play for it.

When we travelled the country with BIG C a few years ago, the idea of a producer owned plant paid for with a checkoff received rave reviews and still holds merit today. I don't know if Cam has the patience to go to ABP/CCA one more time, but maybe you could help us lead a delegation now that ABP is asking for input from producers for direction.