The program, piloted last year, tops up payments of Cargill’s qualifying cattle credits for animals processed in 2023 to $400. It will be paid to certified operations regardless of if those cattle were ultimately sold to Cargill, the CRSB said in a news release today.

Producers who received $400 or more in credits last year won’t qualify.

Operations don’t need to apply for the top-up credit, the CRSB said. If they had an active certification at the beginning of the year, they can expect payment in April.

Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef chair Ryan Beierbach thanked Cargill and its customers.

“We think the CRSB Certified program is one important tool for the Canadian beef sector to demonstrate continuous improvement, and the CRSB hopes other organizations will formally recognize its value,” he said in the news release.

While demand for certified sustainable beef is reportedly high, the program has seen criticism for low return on investment to cattle producers.

Animals have also been found to ‘drop out’ of the certification system, which requires them to pass through certified operations at every step on the value chain—one factor behind updates to the CRSB’s tracking system late last year.

“In 2024, CRSB will prioritize identifying long-term solutions to ensure certification provides financial value and enduring benefit to producer participation,” Beierbach said.

Funding for the CRSB Certification Recognition Credit is provided by Cargill, Centennial Food Solutions, Gordon Food Service, Intercity Packers, MacGregors Meat & Seafood, McDonald’s Canada, Metro, Recipe Unlimited and Walmart

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The Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (CRSB) has released a “fulsome” rethink of the Certified Sustainable Beef Framework (CSBF) prioritizing transparency, clarity and consistency.

It comes on the heels of the the framework’s first scheduled five-year review in its seven-year history. The review started in 2022.

“Continuous improvement is at the core of the CRSB’s mission and this update sets us up for continued progress to support beef farmers and supply chain participants to build trust in the sustainability of Canadian beef,” wrote Kristine Tapley, chair of CRSB’s framework committee, in a news release.

According to CRSB, key improvements and updates to the framework include a thorough review of each indicator in CRSB’s standards for beef production and processing. These were informed by stakeholder and public consultation.

The suite of claims related to certified operations and sourcing of CRSB-certified beef were reviewed and updated, guided by comparison with other programs, expert opinion, stakeholder feedback and legal review.

“We conducted consumer research and updated our claims to reflect what resonated best with consumers,” wrote Tapley in a follow-up email.

“Further, claim statements were streamlined for consistency across different users of the framework and reference to standards and the CRSB are now included in claim statements for better clarity and transparency.”

The assurance protocols that guide the certification process were brought up to date and strengthened to improve consistency and clarity of the system.

The chain of custody requirements were updated to enable consistency in implementation, wrote Tapley.

These requirements outline how cattle and beef are tracked through the supply chain. They also define how CRSB claims for beef sourced from CRSB-certified operations are enabled.

“The update will also help to improve transparency of live cattle movement across all CRSB-certified supply chains,” she wrote.

“Producers can now search the CRSB-certified status of an RFID tag on the Canadian Livestock Tracking System. We hope this search function will help with producer participation in the program.”

As of October 2023, the industry-led Canadian Cattle Identification Agency (CCIA) is providing the tracking of live cattle for the program outside Quebec.

This was previously the responsibility of individual supply chains audited by Where Food Comes From, an independent, third-party food verification company.

“Now supply chains must use CCIA,” wrote Tapley.

The CSBF is a voluntary framework enabling members of the beef supply chain to show their commitment to sustainability and be recognized for their responsible practices, wrote Tapley.

“We certify them in five different areas of sustainability: natural resources, people and community, animal health and welfare, food, and efficiency and innovation. “It certifies farms, ranches and processing facilities on sustainability performance through on-farm, on-site audits. It gives retail and food service members a way to source certified sustainable beef to meet their sustainable sourcing goals.

“Finally, it gives consumers confidence that this beef has been raised with sustainable practices that are backed by credible, science-based information.”

Established in 2014, the CRSB advances, recognizes and communicates continuous improvement in the sustainability of the Canadian beef value chain. The CRSB drives progress through sustainability performance measurement, projects and initiatives aligned with strategic goals, and a voluntary third party sustainability certification program.

Its membership includes a national who’s-who of beef producer associations, beef processors and associations, players in the retail and food service sector, non-governmental organizations, agriculture and food businesses, and academic institutions.

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“This update sets us up for continued progress to support beef farmers and supply chain participants to build trust in the
sustainability of Canadian beef,” said Kristine Tapley, chair of CRSB’s Framework Committee, in a new release.

The framework was launched in 2017 as a bid to recognize and monetize sustainable beef production practices. It came up for a scheduled five-year review in 2022.

The CRSB said a committee, composed of representatives from across the beef supply chain, reviewed all parts of the framework. It also got input from stakeholders, experts and the public.

This included a thorough review of the CRSB’s standards for production and processing; strengthened and protocols for certification to improve clarity and consistency; updates to chain of custody requirements; and how CRSB claims are enabled.

The claims associated with certified operations and sourced CRSB certified beef were also updated.

As of October, the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency (CCIA) is providing tracking of live cattle (outside of Quebec) for the program.

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Hilton Food Group announced Thursday it plans to open a new manufacturing plant in that region to supply Walmart Supercentres in Canada with “a range of protein products” starting with beef, lamb, pork and seafood.

London-based Hilton won’t yet say exactly where or when it expects to have that plant up and running, but has targeted 2026 to start production.

A company representative said via email that at the time of its launch, the Canadian plant will “primarily focus on burgers, meatballs, sausages and marinated products,” processing and packaging them on-site.

As for the meats’ origin, the Hilton rep said “we are aiming towards Canadian sourcing whenever possible, in line with Walmart’s current sourcing strategy.”

Hilton said it will lease a facility and make its major “principal expenditure” in that site and equipment starting in 2024 and continuing “throughout 2025.”

Hilton said it would operate in Canada through a new subsidiary, Hilton Foods Canada, and will debt-finance the new operation, adding its “leverage is expected to remain at comfortable levels during this investment phase.”

Hilton described the deal with Walmart as “long-term” and “a significant step forward” for both companies in meeting increasing consumer demand across Canada for “high quality, good value and increasingly sustainable protein products.”

‘Consistent’

Walmart Canada last year announced it would increase its beef buy from certified-sustainable Canadian cattle producers by one million pounds, up from 1.5 million in 2021.

Walmart’s U.S. parent has taken an increasingly hands-on approach to meat sourcing in recent months. Walmart in June said it will invest US$257 million to open its own case-ready beef plant southwest of Kansas City in 2025.

That plant would be supplied with Angus beef by Sustainable Beef, a Nebraska cattle company in which Walmart took a minority stake in 2022. Sustainable Beef plans to put up a beef packing plant at North Platte in western Nebraska, to open by late 2024.

As for the Canadian further-processing plant, “this agreement further extends our global footprint and will be our first manufacturing facility in North America,” Hilton Foods Group CEO Steve Murrells said in Thursday’s release. Hilton today has 24 packing, processing and distribution plants across Europe and in Australia and New Zealand.

Murrells described the deal as “another sign of the strength of our customer offer, as well as growing consumer demand for high-quality, affordable protein products, which we can deliver through our scale, international experience and supply chain expertise.”

Sam Wankowski, chief merchandising officer for Walmart’s Canadian arm, said the retail chain is “strengthening our delivery of quality products at low prices and with more sustainable packaging to Canadians, while still continuing to support Canadian farms and ranches.”

Working directly with Hilton “will ultimately provide Canadians with fresh, consistent Walmart-brand protein in the sizes and cuts they’re looking for,” Walmart Canada’s vice-president for food, Sourabh Malik, said in the same release.

‘Trade barriers’

The British processor’s planned entry to Canada comes as Canadian beef sector organizations ramp up a campaign calling on the federal government to postpone approval for the United Kingdom’s entry to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) free trade bloc.

Groups including the Canadian Cattle Association, Canadian Meat Council and National Cattle Feeders’ Association last week launched a campaign dubbed “Say No To A Bad Deal.”

They’re asking Ottawa not to approve U.K. access to the CPTPP until it can reach a separate bilateral free trade pact with the U.K., which lifts “technical, non-tariff trade barriers” now keeping Canadian beef out of the British market.

The U.K.’s entry to the CPTPP bloc would allow it to export over $50 million of meat products into Canada, “while Canada will be unable to export any meat products into their market,” the CCA said in a release Sept. 12.

The CCA and CMC, along with the Canadian Pork Council, had already said earlier this year they would oppose CPTPP access for the U.K. and, “failing that, we are asking Parliament to ensure producers and processors for both products are fairly compensated for the damages and losses that will result.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Previously, if cattle moved through a non-certified player in the value chain, (for example, the cow-calf and feedlot operators were certified but not the backgrounder) they couldn’t claim the $20-per-head premium.

“We want to recognize that just being certified is a huge value to all of us,” said Cargill’s Jeffrey Fitzpatrick. “It’s gratifying to see how many producers have certified.”

The pilot — a joint effort by Cargill and the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef — will pay out “regardless of whether their qualifying cattle were ultimately sold into Cargill,” the roundtable says on its website.

In addition to the credit, Cargill and the roundtable will launch a monthly payment schedule reflecting the prior month’s slaughter. The change, which goes into effect in the second quarter of the year, is designed to reduce the two- to four-month delay producers now encounter.

“Naturally, with doing that, you’re likely to see smaller payment amounts, but they’re going to come more frequently, so hopefully that will help tie more directly to what animals these credit dollars attach to,” said Fitzpatrick, who heads Cargill’s BeefUp Sustainability effort in North America. (That program aims to lower Cargill’s carbon emissions by 30 per cent by 2030.)

Cargill began working with the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency last year to access the data that links animals to producers more efficiently and at no extra cost.

Fitzpatrick said data privacy and protection were common concerns raised by producers who were reluctant to participate in the audit, so it required a deliberate and thoughtful approach.

“The primary goal here is just really about focusing on maintaining trust with producers as we go,” he said.

Additionally, Cargill is working with cattle buyers on a system that provides ear tag reports on qualified animals. And they’re being encouraged to talk to cattle producers about the program.

“We’re encouraging feeders to take that one more step back and talk to the people they’re getting supply from — the cow-calf people, backgrounders — to say these ones qualified and these didn’t,” said Fitzpatrick.

The demand for certified sustainable beef products has far outstripped supply, reinforcing the program’s value from the producer side and from Cargill customers such as Loblaws and McDonald’s.

The goal isn’t to create a niche product only available to those who pay a premium, but rather to show that all Canadian beef production is sustainable, said Fitzpatrick, who joined Cargill in 2020 after 16 years as McDonald’s national sustainability and agricultural lead.

“Canada produces the safest, most sustainable, highest-quality beef in the world,” he said. “This is a way to recognize the whole value chain, not specific actors.”

The BeefUp and certified sustainable beef programs provide retailers and grocers with a powerful communication tool, said Fitzpatrick, noting they have third-party audits and chain-of-custody requirements.

“That will make them continue to want to buy (beef) and feel positive about it,” he said. “The worst thing that can happen is people start feeling (eating) beef is a guilty pleasure. We want people to understand the best thing you can do for climate change today is to eat Canadian beef.”

For more info, go to the CRSB blog page.

– This article was originally published at Farmtario.

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An official with the restaurant chain, which has about 100 locations across the country, says buying certified sustainable beef is part of its effort “to minimize the impact of its business on the planet.”

Montana’s parent company, Recipe Unlimited Corporation, is the country’s biggest full-service chain with more than 1,200 restaurants and 20 brands, including Harvey’s, Swiss Chalet, The Keg and Kelseys.

Harvey’s also buys at least 30 per cent certified sustainable beef, as does McDonald’s Canada.

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As of June 30, nearly one-fifth of the country’s beef cattle were raised on farms certified under the standards of the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef. The take-up in certification by Canadian beef producers — just over 1,400 farms — has been impressive, says the roundtable’s outgoing chair.

“We started at zero in 2018,” said Anne Wasko, a well-known beef market analyst. “The numbers that I see, as an analyst, are really exciting and show forward momentum, especially when we know how decisions are made at the ranch level.”

And the small number?

It’s the 10 million pounds sold with a CRSB claim,  a figure that looks big until compared to the 3.36 billion pounds of beef produced in Canada each year.

In other words, 19 per cent of cattle produced on farms were certified sustainable but only 0.3 per cent of all beef was sold with a package logo or from a menu with a certification pledge.

Building a brand for a commodity like beef is difficult, especially since a sustainable brand isn’t on the radar of a lot of consumers, says one of the country’s best-known food industry analysts.

“Right now, what I’m seeing with the roundtable is a push-down approach,” said Sylvain Charlebois, a professor of food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University and director of its Agri-Food Analytics Lab.

“I think you need to do some of the opposite to create that pull effect, so people will want to look for that logo and look for that product.”

And while sustainability in agriculture continues to be a big topic of conversation, many people who eat beef already believe it is sustainable, regardless of whether it’s been certified, he added.

“If it’s not sustainable, what does that mean? What’s the value-add here? It’s like anything else in retail, like fair trade (branding). What are you getting back?”

Still, it’s early days. And the roundtable can point to a number of big wins since it launched its certification program in 2018.

The country’s two dominant beef processors (Cargill and JBS) are now certified (as is Atlantic Beef and Harmony Beef). As well, three major grocery chains — Loblaw, Walmart and Metro — have signed up as buyers along with major distributors including Gordon Food Service.

McDonalds, the country’s largest beef buyer and a major driver of the sustainable beef movement, uses at least 30 per cent certified sustainable beef in its Quarter Pounder burgers.

Moreover, the 10 million pounds of certified beef sold in the past year is a big jump from the 7.4 million sold one year earlier.

“That’s pretty exciting, when you look at other certification or sustainability programs globally,” said Wasko. “It takes them decades to get to these kinds of numbers.”

Of course, the pandemic had impacts on the beef sector, including production issues such as temporary closures of packing plants.

“We heard pretty loud and clear from our Canadian packers that they were all-hands-on-deck in terms of dealing with COVID,” said Wasko.

Even during normal times, building a brand doesn’t happen overnight, she added.

“It takes time to move the needle, in my opinion.”

Further growth is coming, she said. At the roundtable’s recent annual meeting, several member companies indicated they may increase their purchases of certified beef.

“We’ve continued to hear that the demand side pull is there,” she said. “We just continue to see more producers get certified, registered and get beef to the end users here.”

Production capacity has also expanded with the JBS plant in Brooks joining Cargill’s High River facility as a certified processor. When certified cattle go to a feedlot or packer that hasn’t been accredited, the certified sustainable status is lost.

Sustainable beef certification wasn’t a priority during the past two years for many players in the value chain, but it is coming back to the fore because it is important to consumers, said Wasko.

“It’s not just beef sustainability, it’s sustainability across the whole gamut. It’s part of the conversation that is not going away. A few years ago, that wouldn’t have hit the top mark for consumer perceptions, but today it has.”

Charlebois shares that view.

“There are several headwinds for the beef industry right now,” he said. “Environmental stewardship is one of them. They need to build a case.”

By that measure, sales of certified sustainable beef aren’t necessarily the way to gauge success, he added.

“The Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef was more of a defence move rather than a market development move. It was really about moving the yardstick when it comes to environmental perceptions, essentially. It wasn’t about growing markets at all, in my view.”

However, if the beef sector wants to use its certification program as a marketing tool, it should look to the success of Angus beef, said Charlebois.

“I don’t know who decided to brand a breed many years ago, but it worked. It’s simple. A lot of people buy Angus and they have no idea why.

“So, there is a case study in the industry that they can use to retail the benefits. A lot of people believe that Angus beef is the best out there, and they are looking for it.”

But to do that would require the players in the sustainable beef movement to take an aggressive approach when trying to connect with consumers.

“The Angus campaign was a stroke of brilliance, and I hope they can repeat that,” Charlebois said. “To value sustainable beef, you need a sectoral commitment. You need people to embrace this as much as possible.”

The post SUSTAINABLE BEEF: A tale of two different numbers appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“We have four kids who will hopefully take it over, or whoever takes it over next, we want to pass it over in really good condition,” said Jillian Byers who farms with husband Brett just east of Whitecourt.

“We want it to be a farm that is around forever, not just in our time.”

Their approach to sustainability not only includes regenerative ag practices but also a diversified business approach that includes a cow herd, pastured pigs and poultry, an on-farm shop and a whole lot of community connections.

Their efforts were recently recognized with the 2022 Alltech Canada Planet of Plenty award, which hailed the family as role models in sustainable agriculture and community engagement.

The farm is “feeding their local community through regenerative ranching,” the animal nutrition and crop science company said in its announcement of the award.

The couple founded their farm in 2011 and right from the start focused on regenerative ag principles they first learned about by watching YouTube videos of Joel Salatin, the well-known American farmer and lecturer who advocates “healthy grass” as the cornerstone of ranching.

They also drew on what Byers had learned from her father.

“My dad is from New Zealand — down there, you’re really managing the land for what you’ve got. We kind of took those ideologies and put them to work on our farm,” she said.

“That’s a big part of what we do around here — we manage the grass. If you don’t manage the grass, you don’t have cattle.”

They run a 400-head herd of mother cows (half owned by the couple and half by her in-laws). They employ rotational grazing (and bale grazing in winter), have fenced in their dugout and switched to solar-powered pumps, and revitalized pastures.

A decade on, those efforts have paid major dividends.

“We took fields that had zero organic matter to fields that now have six inches of beautiful organic matter that is turning into topsoil and sequestering carbon because we are getting so many different types of plants growing back from it,” she said. “We’ve increased our species diversity with legumes and grasses, and we’ve increased our water storage capacity.”

At the same time, the couple also sought to diversify and strengthen the business side of things.

“We were raising our own beef for ourselves and we got a few pigs, chickens, and turkeys,” said Byers. “Family and friends wanted some products, and then we started taking it to farmers’ markets.”

But those trips to Whitecourt, St. Albert and other communities were time consuming and the couple’s lives were only getting busier.

“We had two kids and I was pregnant with our third, and we just didn’t want to be doing farmers’ markets anymore,” she said.

However, all of those customer interactions had given them a crash course in marketing and understanding consumers, so they took the plunge and opened a store on their ranch.

Actually, for the first year, the store was housed in their garage (with Byers also making the 90-minute drive to St. Albert to deliver orders). Eventually they built a store — a small but charmingly old-timey building — and held their grand opening on Open Farm Days on August 2020.

“Over 400 people came through,” recalled Byers. “We had a line out the door for a few hours. It was a really cool thing to do.”

The retail venture also brought changes to the farm operation.

Each spring, they buy piglets and turn them loose in a big field for pastured pork. They also use a creep feeder so the pigs can self-feed (with a ration blended for them by a nutritionist) — and the animals are also an attraction for customers who love watching them rooting or just lying in the wallows.

The pigs also have a third function as pasture rejuvenators.

“They just root and dig up that big field and it comes back lush in the spring with grasses. We put the cows in there after the pigs have been butchered,” she said.

The chickens start off in a small barn and once they are “feathered out” are moved outdoors into mobile coops that Byers has created and moves along the field every day.

“It kind of looks like a greenhouse, but we just put wire over it,” she said.

Each unit can hold about 100 chickens or 25 turkeys, and Byers is now raising more than 1,000 chickens and 200 turkeys a year (which also receive formulated rations).

The farm store is open Sunday afternoons (or by appointment) and people not only come from the local area but as far afield as Edmonton and Sherwood Park.

“It’s really neat to see the community come out and start to connect with the farm and where their food comes from,” said Byers. “That’s the whole passion behind it — connecting people to their food.

“At the farmers’ market, I just saw the disconnect.”

Visitors also get to see goats and a pony, and can collect their own eggs from the chicken coop.

The Byers see their role as being part of a sustainable community.

“Our little farm can’t feed the world — we’re not trying to feed the world, but we can definitely feed our local community,” she said. “It seems like over the past two years with COVID, lots of little farms are popping up and selling their products because people were so scared when the grocery store shelves were empty.

“That was a good eye-opener for people to connect with their local farms.”

Another important aspect to all of this, said Byers, is that the economic activity on their farm ripples out to others in the community.

“Every dollar spent in my store, every dollar here is hyper-local — I’m paying for the butcher, feed and sometimes labour. Every dollar stays here, and that’s sustainable,” she said.

“As for the land, I don’t think it’s enough to be sustainable, I think we need to be reclaiming the land and really making it work.”

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The initiative (called the FCC Sustainability Incentive Program) was hailed by roundtable chair Anne Wasko, who said more beef buyers are looking for beef produced under the protocols.

“There is an increasing demand from consumers for certified assurances of sustainably raised beef,” she said.

The roundtable, set up in 2014, has created a number of protocols for the beef production value chain from the farm to the processor.

Under a voluntary certification, cattle and beef are tracked and producers receive a small premium based on sales.

More info on the FCC program is available online.

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One year after pledging to buy one million pounds of certified sustainable beef, the Canadian grocery giant now says it will buy three million pounds by 2023. To be certified, the cattle must be raised on farms and processed under protocols established by the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef.

Loblaw said it would buy the beef from certified farms “in partnership with the Ontario Corn Fed beef program.”

The company also said it aims to source 30 per cent of its beef from farms certified under the sustainable beef program (which also requires farms to be independently audited).

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