Martock business offers customers variety
The farm also caters to religious and cultural groups, including offering halal meat, which is a prescribed method of slaughtering animals per Islamic law.
“It comes with changing markets. We’re trying to give what the customer wants. We are becoming a more diverse society all the time,” said Oulton.
His father began offering the religious component decades ago, he added.
“We serve a lot of ethnic groups and each one has their own different style of meat that they want. The Muslims, they want it fresh off the floor,” said Cummins, noting people following the Muslim faith don’t consume any pork products.
Chinese clients, however, will often request pig feet, ears and stomachs — items Cummins said usually aren’t found on many Nova Scotian supper plates.
Cummins estimates about 80 per cent of the customers come from Halifax.
“It’s just a whole different world up here,” said Cummins, who is now adept at cutting everything from wild boar to emus.
Supporting local
“Basically, our philosophy is we want to grow animals the way we feel they should be grown and live out there lives here or on our neighbours’ farm. We also purchase a lot of our products from our neighbours now,” said Oulton. Wayne Oulton checks in on the smoke house to see how the meat is curing. The farm was ahead of the curve when it came to the popularity of offering applewood smoked meat. They’ve been using wood from their apple orchards to smoke bacon for years.
He said the business has grown so much since it first started that it now purchases products from about 50 farmers located within a 30- to 40-kilometre radius. It also employs upwards of 20 people, compared to the handful employed when he was growing up.
The personable farmer says some products are seasonal, as there are multiple rules and regu-
lations that they must adhere to.
“You can’t always meet what the market wants all the time because certain things are seasonal... We may not have lamb consistently year- round, even though we try to. It doesn’t necessarily happen that way,” said Oulton.
The same applies to free-range chickens, which are produced in
the summertime.
“We have a fresh product for a certain portion of the year and then a frozen product for the rest of the year.”
In addition to the meat store, the working farm has two provincially-inspected abattoirs.
Oulton, who has an interest in all animals, said the government required the farm to become an agri-zoo as the business houses such a variety of exotic animals. The most exotic are the zebras and the lemurs, but the agri-zoo also has kangaroos, monkeys, wild boars, yaks and a host of birds.
“Not all animals that we have here end up being processed,” said Oulton.
“I just have an interest in any type of animal, whether it’s domesticated or undomesticated.”
The agri-zoo raises some animals that go on to live in zoos.
“And then we raise another group of exotic animals that are for our meat store — elk, yak, wild boar, emus, llamas,” said Oulton.
His favourite exotic animal to eat is a kangaroo.
Consumers, now more than ever, have the power to dictate how animals are raised and killed, and what businesses they choose to support, Oulton said.
He said he hopes the family business can continue well into the future. It’s a sentiment the local MLA also shared.
“It’s a long day (working on a farm),” said Porter. “Those guys work hard and it’s great to see them being successful. I wish them well for many, many years to come.”