Western Feedlots shutting down, blames ‘headwinds’ in cattle industry | Calgary Herald

Good to know the price of beef has crashed, you'd never know by shopping for it.

Here too.

2000 jobs threatened at Cargil packing plant.

High River, Alberta

Cargill Beef. High River, Alberta.The Town of High River is located in Southwestern Alberta, Canada. It is 37 kilometers south from the City of Calgary. High River gets its name from the Highwood River, which flows through the town. The population of High River consists of 12,930 people, as of 2011. High River is well known for its caring, warm and friendly character, as well as its strong determination. This historical western town is also the official home of the popular TV show Heartland, which has been filming in the High River area since 2007.

Regardless of being classified as a town, High River residents have plenty of activities they enjoy doing all year round. There are plenty of parks to take advantage of including, a skateboard park, a spray park and an outdoor fitness park. They also enjoy the rodeo in the summer months. High River also has historical museums, a historical movie theatre and historic murals that are scattered throughout downtown.
Cargill and High River

Cargill is located just five minutes outside of High River on Highway 2. Cargill is a fully integrated beef processing facility, with slaughter, fabrication, rendering and hide operations are all under one roof. The plant employs approximately 2,000 employees and process 4,500 head of cattle per day. Cargill is federally regulated by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and adheres to the highest integrity and investment into food safety and quality, animal health and safety, corporate social responsibility and employee safety.

Cargill in High River has been recognized as one of the pioneers for recruiting temporary foreign workers. Through working closely with the Alberta Government, the High River plant has successfully recruited 450 laborers from both the Philippines & Mexico, and still continues to do so.

Cargill mostly employs temporary foreign workers. When I worked cutting meat, there were 50 people per store, 3 stores per city in Alberta - all working for one company. Then there was Safeway, Superstore, Save On, and all the others who all employed local butchers and meat cutters to break down carcasses into cuts and sell them. Hamburger was ground the same day, on site, from trimmings made by those cutters. Then Cargill was built, and all those people were replaced by TFWs, and meat became pre-packaged out of that plant and shipped to stores where one or two people put it on the shelf. And quality went downhill.

The loss of Cargill won't be a great one.

I hate to be crass, but I won't see the downfall of those disgusting feedlots as a bad thing either. Cattle raised on grass has a better taste and texture, and a better life.

They say they're only shutting down because of the current business climate. Odds are that when things improve and the NDP get turfed they'll be back. And with another giant taxpayer subsidy, just like the ones they got during the mad cow crisis, waiting for them at the end of the rainbow.

And as A_R points out, with all those highly paid union workers laid off and replaced by TFW's - the price of meat has continued to rise as the quality has fallen!

Can you even get a 'London Broil' (flank steak) in the store any more? Or a Crown Roast of Pork? What about 'Feather' cuts?

Progress is not always for the good.

Another reason not to live in a city: you can buy your meat directly from your neighbour.

And some of us refuse to buy that vacuum sealed crap. Coloured plastic so you can't even see the colour of the meat. Packages implying that meat is sold by the piece - weights varied by over 100g in some of the packages. Multi-packs crudely cut into singles so the consumer knows the store's boosting the price.
With the outrageous price of meat me and many others travel to the next town and shop at the Co-op where they still have an instore butcher. You get what you ask for.
Won't miss seeing whole cows that yield only 4 cuts of beef and hamburger.

I wonder when we're going to start getting our meat from China?