Trusting our Beef

Alberta beef. The brand is world renowned with a reputation hard-earned by thousands of producers and processors every day of the year.

Alberta boasts a legendary reputation for great-tasting beef. It’s our #1 agricultural commodity and the #1 Alberta-grown food product other Canadians, as well as visitors, are most likely to ask about when they visit our province.

But how does an industry founded in the late 1800s survive and thrive in a 21st-century business environment characterized by global trade? With hard work, says Greg Conn, chairman of the Alberta Cattle Commission (ACC) and a beef producer from central Alberta.

The financial spinoffs of a business with 35,000 producers and 6,000 processing employees producing 700,000 tonnes of beef a year means the Alberta beef industry delivers a $12 billion a year boost to the provincial economy. But in an industry characterized by confidence, there is no room for complacency, notes Conn.

“Right now, we’re working hard to make sure consumers trust our product,” says Conn, whose own beef operation embraced a new animal health tracking system months before the program’s mandatory start date.

World-class quality assurance

This new system is a good example of what front-line food producers are willing to do to support good production practices, adds Joyce Van Donkersgoed of the Intensive Livestock Working Group. A voluntary coalition of livestock producers in Alberta, the group is developing homegrown quality assurance programs with farm-gate applications.

They are also working with Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development to design practical environmental farm plans to help producers do an even better job of safeguarding food and environmental safety, as well as animal welfare.

“Consumers are demanding there be some proof that producers are following good production practices. I think these farm plans will provide more of that proof,” says Van Donkersgoed.

Alberta-wide HACCP in place by July

On-farm food and environmental safety initiatives are apt to be big news in the coming years. In the meantime, food safety initiatives pick up momentum as the product nears the consumer’s plate. All Alberta processing plants, for example, will be able to read and process information from the beef ID traceback system by July 2001. By the end of this year, all of these facilities will also need Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) certification.

HACCP certification means meeting the industry’s strictest standards for food safety regulations. It’s already a requirement for plants that export beef products. Applying the same standards to domestic production “provides us with a very, very good record keeping system so that if we ever did have a challenge, we could do a proper recall,” says Pat Collins of Centennial Foods.

Centennial buys meat from federally inspected, HACCP-certified plants, then fabricates value-added products ranging from gourmet appetizers and entrees to pre-made burgers for major fast-food outlets. Centennial, which ships meat across Western Canada and into the U.S., owns two HACCP-certified plants. The other four are headed in that direction.

HACCP certification details precisely what everyone involved in the operation must do – and prove they’ve done – to create a safe food environment, says Collins. This includes protocols for the temperature of coolers, as well as random bacteria checks with swabs sent to independent laboratories, strict wash down procedures and protocols that guard against cross-contamination.

It’s not just business, “it’s better business,” insists Collins.

The accountability chain

As the food service manager for the Alberta Cattle Commission, Marty Carpenter loves to talk about how beef producers and processors safeguard the industry’s reputation for safe, quality beef. He’s also pleased to note increases in domestic beef consumption for the last two years running. Still, his job isn’t as easy as it might sound. As the national food services team leader with the Beef Information Centre (BIC), Carpenter also works to cultivate a stronger “culture of food safety” in the Canadian foodservice industry.

In that role, Carpenter constantly fine-tunes a beef safety message for hotel, restaurant and catering personnel who handle raw and cooked meat. And his potential audience is massive. In Alberta alone, some 77,000 people earn a living in the food, beverage, tavern and catering sector. Many of them do jobs that could directly affect a food service establishment’s safe food environment.

The same basic food safety messages addressed to commercial businesses apply to home kitchens, too, says Pat Scarlett, the BIC’s national nutrition manager. She is also a BIC representative with the Canadian Partnership for Consumer Food Safety Education, a consortium of private and public organizations concerned with food safety issues. “Bacteria is a natural part of the food environment. Educational initiatives help consumers realize that they have a role in keeping food safe and provide practical tips for achieving this,” notes Scarlett.

For more information on what you can do to safeguard food safety at home, check out the partnership’s Web site, www.canfightbac.org, call the Food Safety Info Line at 1-800-892-8333 or go to www.growingalberta.com.