Bridging the gap: Turning a good idea into an actual business

By Canadian Farm Manager, June/July 2007

If the world unfolds as Lars Jorgensen thinks it will, January 2007 will go down as an historic moment in the Canadian livestock industry.

That’s when Jorgensen’s $400,000 baby – a 53-foot-long mobile abattoir – headed out of Fort St. John, B.C. for its first on-the-farm slaughter assignment.

“I got into this because there was a need – the bottom line was there wasn’t enough slaughter capacity and in some parts of my province, farmers were getting out of livestock because they just couldn’t get affordable slaughter,” says Jorgensen, president of Gate to Plate Food Services Inc.

“The other side of the coin is this is going to open up doors for producers. We’re offering traceability, we do organic, we offer more humane slaughter that gives you better quality meat, and we’ll (soon) have federal inspection so you can ship your meat anywhere – whether that’s the local grocer or a restaurant in Vancouver or Montreal.

“We’re never going to threaten the big boys in the slaughter business, but mobile abattoirs are going to create opportunities for small-scale producers that never existed before.”

That’s pretty big talk, but Jorgensen isn’t the only one to feel that way. Those are exactly the kind of benefits that proponents of mobile abattoirs have been championing for years.

The problem wasn’t a lack of enthusiasm; it was a lack of mobile abattoirs – the hype never translated into results.

Mobile abattoirs are a good example of why, in the knowledge economy, knowledge alone isn’t enough. There also has to be the will to apply it – to make things happen.

“We’ve used existing technology and adapted it to what we are doing,” says Jorgensen. “About the only thing we needed in terms of new technology was a new configuration of trailers with 10-foot-high ceilings (so large carcasses won’t touch the floor).”

As technical challenges go, raising the ceiling of a tractor trailer isn’t exactly rocket science.

Rather, the two big hurdles were regulatory and financial. Jorgensen and his partners, Russ Travis and Greg Diemert, looked at an American mobile abattoir but quickly realized it would never satisfy Canadian Food Inspection Agency regulations. He also dismissed a European version.

“It was designed by academics and practicality was never an issue,” says Jorgensen. “So $5 million later, who the hell would be able to operate this thing and make money?”

That kind of blunt talk is typical of Jorgensen, a former executive chef whose experience running large hotel and airline flight kitchens has given him a drill-sergeant aggressiveness that served him well in his new enterprise.

“I’m probably one of the few people who can read CFIA regulations and actually understand what they mean – these things are not written to be understandable,” he says.

“I’ve got 30 years in the food industry and so when we met with CFIA and the first thing they suggested is that I hire a consultant … well, let’s say I made it pretty clear what I thought of that idea.”

It was an understandable clash of cultures. Both sides wanted the same thing: a process that successfully met a host of food-safety, slaughter, and environmental standards. The question was whether Jorgensen’s planned facility – which includes sanitation and hot-water systems, grey water collection, and a chill cooler – would do the trick.

“I had to plough my own road – there was no blueprint I could follow,” he says. “So the attitude I took was, ‘You tell me what the problem is – put it on the table and I’ll find a way to solve it.’

“And I solved everything they threw at me. In the end, I backed them into a corner because once I had dealt with every problem, they had to say yes.”

Jorgensen also believes he’s solved the economic equation. He charges $150 per cow, more than most slaughter facilities, but there’s no transportation costs or the resulting loss in meat quality that results when large stressed-out animals are confined in a small space. As well, it solves the dilemma for both organic producers and those conventional operations located far from a slaughter facility.

Demand has been very strong and Jorgensen plans to put nine more mobile abattoirs on the road in the next year. Ultimately, he’d like to go across Canada, a market he estimates could support 100 to 140 units, including ones which can slaughter lamb, goats and poultry.

Ultimately, the demand may depend on how adept livestock producers are at capitalizing on this new innovation. How many will strike deals with local grocers and butchers? How many will go after the high-end market, contracting with gourmet meat shops or restaurants? How many will band together, build processing facilities and create their own brand?

Jorgensen says there’s a tremendous market opportunity targeting consumers who want natural or organic meat that has been raised (and killed) in the most humane manner possible and comes with impeccable traceability certification.

“Traceability is going to be a value-added component and this whole humane thing is going to take on a life of its own,” he says. “Consumers are becoming more and more sophisticated and they want to know where their meat is coming from. Those who understand this new consumer are going to find ways to profit from that.”


The Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada (OACC) wishes to thank the Canadian Farm Business Management Council for permission to reproduce this article on our website.


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Posted July 2007