XL Foods Announces Temporary Layoffs

[grassfarmer]

"Very fiew people are willing to be told how to run
their business."

On the contrary - most business men comply with the
laws and legislation governing their industry just as
most citizens live within the rules and laws that
govern our society.
I'll admit to spending more time than I should on
Agriville - it makes for a distraction from the
monotony of filling out beef order forms and sending
out delivery notices.
What's your excuse? skipping out on your online ESL
course?

[kato]

Why should we not expect a processor to operate with inspectors, workers, and union bosses telling them what to do?? This happens in virtually every large food processing plant in the country. I don't see other plants finding this to be a hardship.

My son worked at a large potato processing plant that had all those people, plus the quality control people from McDonalds added to the mix. You want to see the management at a plant jump to attention? Just let them know the guys from McDonalds are on their way. Fussy doesn't begin to describe the attitude they bring with them. I suppose Cargill gets that pleasure in the meat packing sector.

Other processors deal with all these things as a fact of life.

Oversight is part of the business. It comes with the territory, and anyone processing food knows that going in.

[rkaiser]

Gotta answer a question from Dave first. What would happen if our company caused an ecoli case in a human? Well first of all, it would not hurt you and I doubt like hell that you would jump all over the inspectors at our store and try to help me out..LOL

I would say that I would work with the inspectors and clean it up Dave and if the media got all over it, our business would likely fail. Pretty strange comparison, I say.

I can only speak for myself, but certainly am not saying that we let the CFIA off the hook. That being said, this issue is the responsibility of the plant and the people in it who are supposed to know that they are dealing with food for humans and not a widget to simply make money off.

What I don't understand on this thread is why the producers who NB has played with like a cat playing with a mouse for the last half dozen years are jumping on the CFIA bandwagon and not reading any of the real life words that those of us who are NOT arm chair critics are posting.

You want a solution rather than a pissing match, Gary and Cam Ostercamp and yours truly have been offering one for years. I do not know of a better time for producers of this country to finally stand together and own this industry themselves.

Simply a matter of going with the status quo rather than allowing a new thought to manifest?

When I said last night that I know where your priorities lie Sheri, I thought it was with the producers of this country and not an oligopolistic (another twist on that word for you to critique Cameron LOL) entity that has made more money off the backs of producers than even Cargill in the BSE days.

Of course I don't want to see producers loose money over this mess. But to say that every producer could not be part of a value chain in this country is bunk. If we were all to join forces and brand Canadian Beef with an implant free, non antibiotic fed label, and maybe even ad a few more tidbits to differentiate from American Beef, we will lead you to markets domestically, south of the 49th and all over the world that would pay a premium for it. The world is waiting with arms wide open for Canada to grow some yitchies and quit kissing Uncle Sam's ass. I continue to give NB credit for their near faultless work in a market full of producers who have simply given up. Producers who are scared enough of the future that they are not supporting these two geniuses named Brian and Lee. Geniuses whoare somehow gaining support from those who they have proven that they could not give a shit about for years. Ridiculous.

[rkaiser]

Obviously meant to say producers that "are" supporting the geniuses.. LOL

I know you would have picked up on that one for me GF..

[greybeard]

There is a thick fog around he message coming out here but I interpret it that they have no paper to say they did the testing they were required to do, therefor it is assumed they did no tests.
How many more inspectors are required to assure someone actually does a required test and files the appropriate paper? Can 1 guy handle that or does it take 100?

[gcreekrch]

Randy, if the inspectors had dropped the ball and were using your company as a scapegoat, EVEN IF it was your negligence to begin with, I would question their credibility in that case also.
The Nillson's never directly harmed me that I know of. The cattle you guys keep accusing them of "stealing" were largely sold at auction markets where they were the last bidder. Good thing they had a use for those ol' cows or there would have been lots of coyote bait in this country.
They have been called ruthless by many. Maybe so, but that happens to be the real world of free enterprise. There isn't anything in the NBI organization that says they are a welfare outfit. Accept it and let it go.

As far as producer owned co-ops, they aren't normally successful but I have a suggestion.... Oil companies have a lot of cattle on feed for tax purposes, why not convince one of them to buy in? Or... and I say this tongue in cheek, you and gaucho could snuggle up together and build one with the contacts you both have. LOL

I sincerely wish you the best in your business, just don't get so large that folks refer to you in the same manner as you refer to Nillson's (wink)

[GaryE]

Just a point of clarification...I didn't mean to imply that we don't need the CFIA...just not in its current form. We need an organization that will ensure that our food is safe. Today if that organization were in charge of a review, I can only assume that they would come back with many "new" regulations like trimming tag prior to shipment, mandatory E coli vaccination and doubling inspector numbers rather than accepting their part of the blame in this fiasco. XL not only needed to be held accountable for implementing their own safety protocols but needed to be held to higher industry standards. An independent review of the protocols and plant could give us those definitive recommendations without adding a host of interventions like those that were added following BSE. As an aside, not one of the 19 positive cases of BSE would have made it past the Ante Mortem inspection had we continued to follow existing protocols pre-BSE and thereby reducing our regulatory burden.
Minister Ritz must hold CFIA accountable for their inaction or he will be held accountable for his inaction.

[burnt]

"Minister Ritz must hold CFIA accountable for their inaction or he will be held accountable for his inaction."

This, we are finding, is much easier said than done...

[rkaiser]

Hope I don't get in trouble for being a lazy arm chair ass today for posting in the middle of the morning...LOL 6 days straight opening the new meat shop at a very opportune time makes me feel I deserve a day at the ranch to check on my bulls and have a walk around. And check in on the rest of the lazy asses. LMAO I personally believe that this group of folks that post here on agriville are some of the most ambitious human I know. One or two or sometimes six jobs along with time to voice their very important opinions. Just wish that Dave's new found genius hero's Brian and Lee would chip in with us. Too busy figuring out how to use every single opportunity to their advantage these days I guess; as jensend says... LOL

As for cuddling up to Christoph Dave. Already cuddling. We are still a ways off full carcass utilisation at our stores and purchase any extra cuts that we need from Prairie Heritage. Christoph is happy with his current plant; and why wouldn't he be? They are simply a custom operator and not in direct competition with him for market share.

XL has their own line of "Spring Creek Natural Beef", "which I am personally all over these days with our customers. Talk about timing. Wish I could tell everyone in the world, but that would be bashing right Dave.. LMAO

About the only thing I have against Christophs program these days is his price. I wish you would raise it up a little my snuggle buddy. Still a producer supporter --- even at our Second to None Meat Shop level...

Saw that the across the board boxed price came up at least 2 bucks a KG this week from Cargill.

Producer owned plants do work Dave. In fact IBP stood for Independent Beef Producers, until they saw profit in selling out to Johnny T and the gang and your buddies at XL today seem to brag every time they get about being Beef producers. Co - op may be a dirty word in your book for some silly reason, but all it really means is cooperation. take a good look at the word independence or individual. Both have roots that indicate acceptance of cooperation, part of a whole.

Okay - before I loos you all with a diatribe, I would love to comment on Gary's post. Yes and independent study of XL is needed. A study that I fully believe would show that both XL and the CFIA staff that they worked with at the plant were trying to find ways to make a silk purse out of a shitty pigs ear at Brooks. "We have to keep this shithole operating so that no one else can come in and build something new here in Canada and steal the profits we are all making". Likely never said, but reality just the same.

What I really like about Gary's post is another solution, which is mostly what I am trying to offer as well. A producer owned plant or plants may be a bit big for most to think about at this time, however the idea of shaving tag at the feedlot --- brilliant.

How could the feedlot guys pass this cost down to the grassroots producer the way that liability seems to always trickle down? Oh gee - they may pay less for cattle with hair that have the ability to pump out superior carcasses LOL --- But wait they already do that...

"Trickle down" HMMMM. seems that some one I know wrote a whole paper on the "trickle down" syndrome a few years back.

OK - the tag issue. Very good issue to discuss, maybe we could even start w new thread with that one. Should the carcass animal be free of tag at the slaughter level, would we see a decrease in ecoli prominence. I think so.

Despite the little pissing matches going on here folks, I think we are finding more than one solution for the future. Don't you think Dave?..

[rkaiser]

Oh yes the oil company money. Sorry Dave. need to address that as well. I have been chasing that money for over two years now. Met with many of them in their ivory towers in Calgary. Each time they looked at the big picture and saw how much power and control the Oligopoly wields in the industry and, knowing predatory business practices well, they backed off. No one in the world of business knows how to manipulate government to their standards than Oilmen Dave. What we need to make a new plant work is either a groundswell of producers who trust that we can sell differentiated product, or a product pull partner who will jump on our business plan. Working on both Dave. The current situation only brought back hope for me that producers can see through the NB wool and join forces. We are here and we are ready whenever that happens. Far more ready than the BIG C days when things were mostly a dream. We have markets ready to go with letters of intent from around the world. More markets that all of Canada will ever be able to supply.

But I guess most folks simply want to get XL back up and operating so that Brian and Lee can start killing the cattle that I doubt like hell if they have stopped buying or feeding.