What’s Canada’s Beef Against Small Meat?

Canada’s independent butchers and meat markets are being driven out of business or into massive debt by new laws governing regulating and inspecting meat curers.  These were enacted in response to the meat scare involving Maple Leaf Foods.

The new rules make it next to impossible for small stores to cure their own meats.  That means the wieners, sausages, and other smoked meats you see on the shelves come from a major producer, not the small town market you’re buying it in.  Customers are complaining that it’s not the same products they’re used to.

Image via Wikipedia

These businesses have also added to the economic crisis in that now they have had to let people go.  The province has some grants available to help with costs, but when the cost to comply with code is twenty or more times the largest grant available, it’s basically worthless.

Owners say that some of the changes are good, things like sink placement and such, but much of the code calls for covering existing wood surfaces with expensive paneling many simply cannot afford.  One family owned meat market needs to build a half a million dollar shipping and receiving dock in order to comply.  Instead, they will simply stock mass produced meat products.  The only thing being smoked in-house will be the doggy treats.

The new rules also include a mountain of paperwork.  Writing protocols and procedures for everything.  A deluge of forms and checklists must be completed each day and placed on safekeeping adding hours of work to owners who have already had to let people go.

Keith Warriner, says “We have to recognize the industry could not go on as it was,” he says. “People had started cutting corners and so it was important to do something.” Keith Warriner is a professor at the University of Guelph.

The new laws are destroying wealth.  Many owners whose plans had included passing on a multi-generational business will close shop instead of passing it to the children.

The government has made it impossible to do business.