Dear Editor
There is a lot of hype about the “100 mile diet” these days, meaning that you buy locally.
If you are used to buying your meat from your local butcher at their shop in an Ontario town, farm gate or their meat stand at your local farmers’ market, you may be in for a big surprise.
They may not all be there much longer.
Why, you ask?
The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food has inspectors inspecting the small local abattoirs and butcher shops on a regular basis for food safety issues. Some of these incidental issues are going to cost $100,000-$200,000 or more.
Farmers have taken their animals to their local abattoirs for generations. Large processing plants cannot accommodate them; there is no guarantee that the animals they send are the ones they get in return.
According to the article “More Marbling” by Frances Anderson in the March 2010 edition of “Ontario Hog Farmer,” meat processors are “moisture enhancing” meat by adding 7-18 per cent water to the meat, which many consumers may not be aware of.
To my knowledge, there is no recorded history of meat-related illness associated with these small businesses, as there was with the recent listeria outbreak in 2008 from a large corporate meat processing plant.
If this were the case, residents would have signs and symptoms of “food contamination” for extended periods of time, not just from one meal, since there is constant consumption of these meat products from their favourite local butchers.
These entrepreneurs have a reputation to uphold in their community and many are family-owned businesses which have been in their communities for generations.
They slaughter once or twice a week with inspectors on site to reject any animals that fit the rejection criteria.
They have ample time to thoroughly clean and disinfect their shops on a daily basis, whereas the large processing plants, many with more than one shift, have little “downtime” to do the necessary cleaning.
The butcher shops employ local people, pay business taxes and are part of their thriving communities.
The skyrocketing expenses of upgrading their business is not affordable for many of these small business entrepreneurs.
So are they being railroaded out of business by the “big processors”? Do they want the whole pie instead of part of it?
Bigger is not better in this case!
Are we heading to more rural ghost towns? What about small-town Ontario? Where do the local butchers fit in, because they are now on the chopping blocks.
To support your local butchers, please contact your local MPP and let him/her know your concerns about this issue.
Sincerely,
Anya Donaldson
R.R. 2 Tavistock
