Small-scale Alberta meat producers, retailers see boom during COVID-19

Valentin Iten's small butcher shop in the central Alberta hamlet of Morningside has never been so stuffed.

Built to hold 36 beef carcasses, Iten's meat lockers in mid-May were crammed with about 45, waiting to be cut into steaks or roasts, ground into hamburger or made into jerky.

Business began to pick up in March, but Iten's phone started ringing with panicked calls as COVID-19 cases in the province climbed. Despite doubling staff from four to eight, hehas been working long hours seven days a week since early April.

Iten and others involved in small-scale beef production and sales in Alberta have faced an onslaught of queries since COVID-19 arrived in the province.

Producers and suppliers say customers, worried about meat shortages in the wake of widespread news coverage on conditions in large slaughterhouses, are interested in finding smaller, local sources.Outbreaks of COVID-19 have sickened more than 1,600Alberta packing-plant workers, resulting in four deaths, forcing temporary shutdowns that have disrupted supply.

'Everyone is stockpiling'

As requests have poured in, Iten said farmers who call now to have an animal butchered will have to wait until August or September.

He said he'd increase his capacity if he could, but it's hard to find qualified workers, and there's no time to train them. He said he has heard other butchers are facing a similar deluge from customers worried about meat supply.

"They're seeing the empty shelves, they're seeing and hearing what happens in the States, they're seeing the big places shut down, they're seeing in the auction market that beef prices drop, they're seeing their own freezers empty. And as the panic starts, everyone is stockpiling."

Iten said more customers are keeping parts of animals they previously weren't interested in livers, oxtails, tongues and bones.

"All of a sudden everybody starts eating everything," he said. "We do way more soup bones now than we ever did."

He travels to his clients' farms, shoots the animal in the field from about 60 yards away, then transports it back to his shop for processing.He believes it's a more humane way to butcher than by transporting cattle to a slaughterhouse and using other methods to kill them, such as by hitting animals in the head with a bolt gun before workers slit their throats.

"I still go to the gun range every month, shooting my gun, to make sure that if I push that trigger that animal is dead," Iten said. "When you go to those places, how they hit them with sticks and other things I've seen. I've worked for bigger places it's not very nice for the animal and I think smaller operations could do a better job than the big ones."

Iten's customers are farmers and a few acreage owners. In Alberta, farmers can have two animals butchered per year for personal use, but it's illegal to sell the uninspected meat to consumers. Iten follows the rules himself, but suspects that once the meat is out the door, it may be more widely distributed.

"The meat is supposed to be going back to the farmer, but it's not always eaten that way. It goes to other people too, I imagine."

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He would like to see Alberta regulations change so farmers are allowed to sell directly to consumers. In February 2020, the ministry of agriculture and forestry carried out consultations about changing meat inspection regulations to allow for so-called "farm-gate" sales of uninspected meat.

"The feedback from the consultation has been compiled and analysis is underway to determine the most prudent path forward," Agriculture Minister Devin Dreeshen said in an emailed statement.

There is precedent for these kinds of sales: though the practice is "not encouraged," a spokesperson for Saskatchewan's Ministry of Health confirmed that there are situations when a farmer may slaughter and butcher their own animals on their farm, and then sell directly to a consumer.

"In these cases the consumer should be aware that the animal is not inspected and/or processed in a facility that is approved and inspected and that they assume the risk of consuming the product," the spokesperson wrote in an email.

Haven't seen it before

Iten isn't alone in calling for regulation changes.

Takota Coen is a second-generation organic farmer whose family operates south of Camrose, Alta. His family does direct sales, but it means having to send cattle to a slaughterhouse for inspections before his clients get the meat.

But that takes planning, and the Coens were sold out before the pandemic hit, and won't have any more meat ready until November. That hasn't stopped the queries though: Coen said his family has been fielding at least one call or email a day from someone hoping to buy from the farm.

"Typically our customers come word of mouth, whereas these customers are actively searching online trying to find a local farm and then contacting us," he said.

"And typically when people first buy from us they might buy a pound of beef or a smaller variety pack. A lot of these people are looking for whole cows, five or six hundred pounds of meat at once, which is thousands of dollars, which is something we have not seen before."

Coen, who has previously advocated for regulatory changes to allow farmers to sell uninspected meat directly to consumers, said he thinks the increased interest shows that people are waking up to the "fragility" of centralizing meat processing in a handful of large facilities.

Coen said his family raises as much livestock on its land as is ecologically sound, so he has been passing the people reaching out to him on to other farmers in the area. He's hopeful that demand and regulatory changes will make it easier for more people to get into farming, in turn increasing local supply for consumers.

"We should be producing all this stuff ourselves," he said. "And we can, and I think we will."

At market

Supply hasn't been an issue at Acme Meat Market in Edmonton, but it was tough to keep up with demand earlier this spring, said owner Corey Meyer.

"It was kind of funny, though, because people would start off phone calls with 'I'm not hoarding, but,' and so that's kind of your first clue that they would be," Meyer said.

Many people who phoned or emailed about placing orders told him they were keen to support local and the "small guy," a sentiment he hopes will stick around. Though demand has settled down a bit, Meyer said rising beef prices, which he partly attributes to the kickoff of barbecue season, mean he's going to have to adjust prices in his shop.

Real Deal Meats, another Edmonton butcher shop, said by email that they were too busy for an interview business had doubled and they were short staffed. On May 11, Real Deal posted notice on its website that freezer packs of meat were no longer available due to the rising cost of meat.

The new craft beer?

From farm to butcher shop to retail, all of the sources CBC interviewed say they think increased interest in locally sourced meats may stick around, even when the threat of COVID-19 fades away.

In fact, the owners of Rge Rd, a prairie-focused fine-dining restaurant in Edmonton, are counting on it. Blair Lebsack and Caitlin Fulton are on the cusp of opening a full-scale butcher shop in the retail space next door.

"We're going to be using knives and muscle, we're not going to be using a lot of equipment to break down the animals, and then customize all the cuts," Lebsack said in an interview outside The Butchery, which they hope to open by July.

Custom butchering has always been a big part of their restaurant service, and they've been offering products to go on a pop-up basis since 2015. They were hoping their new venture would meet demand for prime cuts of locally sourced meats, but during the pandemic they have seen a spike in new interest from people who are put off by what they've seen happening in larger facilities.

"I think craft meat will be the new craft beer," Lebsack said. "We've been saying it for years and we want it to be more accessible."