Regulation changes irk meat processors

Farmers and butchers are up before the dawn. Now, they are being told to put their mornings on hold for a couple of hours while they await the arrival of provincial government meat inspectors. “On the days we slaughter, we start at 6 a.m.,” said John Dickie, who operates Dickie’s Meats in West Leicester, near Amherst. “They want to take that time away from us and start at 8. That just throws a wrench into the way I am structured.” The changes, stipulated by the Environment Department which oversees meat inspection compliance in the province, are due to come into effect on June 25. A letter sent by the Inspection Compliance and Enforcement Division to abattoirs and farmers on April 3 dictated that inspection services will only be offered from 8 a.m., to 5 p.m., and that requests for inspection services must be received two weeks in advance of the inspection date. “The request must include the number and types of animals to be slaughtered,” the letter read. The changes “will allow better planning, allocation of staff and increased reliability in providing services at times requested by industry,” the inspection division letter said. Animals cannot be slaughtered at government-licensed facilities without an inspector on site. Dickie and his nine full-time and two part-time staff normally slaughter animals three mornings a week from 6 a.m. to noon, before moving on to other jobs like cutting the meat, getting orders ready and on the truck and picking up animals. “Those jobs can’t be done in the early morning hours. That is just the way it is. This is completely screwing up my system.” Joe Ebbett is facing the same frustrations. “The other thing is the animal welfare, which I think is the biggest thing of all,” said Ebbett, who employs up to 10 people during the busy chicken and turkey slaughtering months of June to December at Ebbett’s Meadow Brook Farm outside of Tatamagouche. “Those chickens get very very hot sitting there in crates into the afternoon. If we can get them killed by noontime, then they are not sitting out there in the heat in the middle of the afternoon.” Ebbett regularly slaughters animals three days a week, too, starting at 7 a.m. With the inspector soon scheduled to arrive at 8 a.m., Ebbett said the slaughter will drag on into mid-afternoon, factoring in lunch breaks and employee fatigue from working in the hot weather, combined with the heat of the poultry scalder. “I don’t understand their reason for doing it,” Ebbett said. “They are not maximizing inspectors’ time. If I have an inspector there at 7 and they are able to go home between 12 and 1, that’s less time than having an inspector there at 8 o’clock and they are not getting out of there until 3.”