Kill and Chill: Restructuring Canada's Beef Commodity Chain

Bruce Grainger is head of the Public Services Department, Macdonald
Library, McGill University.

Kill and Chill chronicles the immense changes that have taken place in
the beef industry in Canada and North America over the last 20 years and
provides an overview of current technologies employed in the beef
industry, from ranch or farm to feedlot, slaughterhouse, and
supermarket. The processing of other meats, especially pork, is
discussed to a limited extent.

A very large share of beef cattle in Canada is now fed in giant
feedlots concentrated in southern Alberta’s “feedlot alley,” and
processed in nearby large-scale slaughtering and processing plants.
Specialized meat products are shipped in boxes to population centres in
Canada or exported to the United States or overseas. This contrasts
sharply with the previous pattern of shipping large numbers of younger
cattle from Western Canada to Ontario and Quebec, where they were fed
and eventually slaughtered near large population centres. The author
provides the historical background to over a century of developments in
the industry, including the careers of such notable personalities as
Senator Pat Burns, Sir Joseph Flavelle, and J.S. McLean.

In the current economic environment, the owners of the large new
meatpacking plants have succeeded in eliminating or neutralizing unions
and in successfully undermining the wage rates and standard of living of
employees. American companies have led the way in union-busting in
Canada. Recent trends have led one commentator to describe the Canadian
meat industry, especially beef, as essentially American. Meat industry
wages have plummeted so low that the turnover of labor approaches 100
percent per year. For this industry, which pays less than $10 an hour as
a starting wage, the Government of Canada has devised a special
immigration program to import cheap labor from Mexico. MacLaughlan does
not concern himself with the social consequences of this reduction in
wages; he merely notes that the pay is better than at the local
McDonald’s.

These meat enterprises are frequently vertically integrated, with a
company such as Cargill Foods engaged in many branches of the
agriculture and food industries. The large-scale plants are all
federally inspected and can be expected to produce a sanitary product in
contrast to many small-scale operations that are far less rigorously
inspected. The implications of increasing the speed of meat processing
lines for sanitation are not discussed. The European Community’s
standards are instructive in this regard given that the EC’s lower
line speed ensures that workers have the time to do careful and sanitary
work.

Feedlots with up to 50,000 cattle in one location can pose a threat to
the environment and to human health. A high level of gastrointestinal
illnesses in the people who live in “feedlot alley” is a consequence
of manure-polluted groundwater. MacLaughlan’s coverage of criminal
activities in the meat industry is minimal and he fails to mention the
huge Mafia-organized tainted meat scandal in Quebec, which involved
corruption in the provincial meat inspection service. Similarly ignored
is the conviction of a large supermarket chain in Ontario for mixing
cheaper pork with beef hamburger.

The author is inconsistent in explaining specialized terms. A word such
as “heifer” is defined but some less familiar terms are not. In
addition to charts and tables, there are photographs of cattle
operations and old slaughterhouses (but, surprisingly, none of the new
large slaughterhouses). There is an adequate index and a list of
references.