THUNDER BAY — An investment in new technology will allow a Thunder Bay company to significantly increase the amount of locally raised meat it processes — and start getting that meat onto grocery store shelves.
Right now Superior Foods mostly supplies large companies like mines and ships, but owner Luis Alves told Newswatch the general public should be seeing local meat on the shelves of independent grocery stores in the city in the next three to six months.
“A lot of the stores, at this point, have opened up to look at buying more local or displaying more local products. One of their guidelines is the packaging and their labelling guidelines. With the new machinery we have and the new packaging and labelling systems, we'll be able to meet that,” Alves said.
He said the company works with local cattle and pork farmers, as well as farmers in Dorion and the Emo area, to get their products to market, but they do not have enough capacity for larger wholesale distribution.
“Thunder Bay is well set with the farmland that's here, that's perfect for raising cattle, that's being underutilized. The opportunity to really create and help grow the farmers' capacity to raise more animals,” Alves said.
He said the bottleneck for farmers to raise more livestock is the availability of processing facilities.
With a single slaughterhouse in Murillo, farmers in the region have been saying for years they need an increase in the local meat processing capacity, Thunder Bay – Atikokan MPP Kevin Holland told Newswatch.
“This is gonna help, hopefully, eliminate some of that bottleneck and get more of the local products to market,” he said.
Out of the company's $1.4 million in total sales, Alves said, $300,000 is in local products. They would like to get the local number up to $500,000.
“Hopefully, with the increased capacity, we're able to do more. We've also been limited on how much we can take in,” he said.
Alves estimates that roughly a quarter of their meat is locally sourced; he hopes the can increase that to 50 or 60 per cent.
“A lot of farmers have approached us, and they've been very positive about the opportunity to expand. They're very eager to increase their herds, knowing that we can kind of move forward with some of the projects that we have planned. They are definitely very excited about it,” Alves said.
The company invested over $150,000 to purchase new custom-made software, packing equipment, scales, and a printer, which will help them meet the labelling requirement to put their products into large grocery stores. Nearly half that amount, $75,000, was provided through a joint federal-provincial initiative, the Sustainable Canadian Agriculture Partnership.
“This is just great to support the agri-food business in Northwestern Ontario and provide them another opportunity to get, particularly in this case, the beef and the pork processed, packaged, and distributed to our stores,” Holland said.
