Amidst challenges for the local beef industry, the Rainy River District Regional Abattoir (RRDRA) is back to hold its second fundraiser dinner to help it continue to offer services to local meat producers.
The RRDRA will be holding their “Diamonds and Denim” fundraiser dinner this year on Saturday, November 1, at the Barwick Hall, with the event kicking off at 5:00 p.m. Tickets for the dinner are $100 per person.
Kelsey Desnoyers is the president of the RRDRA board and is organizing the dinner, which will continue on many of the elements that were present during last year’s event.
“The fundraiser dinner we’re doing this year is similar to last year,” she said.
“We’re going to have a penny table, silent auction, live auction and other games. We’ll have a farm style, locally-sourced meal and this year’s theme is ‘Diamonds & Denim’ so take that as you will. We’re going to have prizes for best dressed and I’ve heard some people are pulling out their Bedazzlers and doing some stuff up.”
Last year, during the first edition of the event, the community raised over $50,000 for the abattoir which serves dozens of local meat producers, including beef, poultry, pork and other meats.
Local producers are facing the challenge of the shutdown of one of the few local butchers over the summer, with Sunrise Meats ending most of its operations.
“We had two processors in the area, there was Rainy River Meats, which is now Peterman’s Meat Products and Sunrise Meats in Barwick, and these two meat shops were taking all of the hanging carcasses from producers in the area and turning them into cuts, ground beef and sausages and what have you,” Desnoyers said.
“In July, Sunrise made the announcement that they were no longer going to be taking people’s hanging carcasses to their facility to be cut and processed.”
Desnoyers has firsthand experience of the inconvenience of Sunrise decreasing their operations as she deals with her own family’s business through Cornell Farms.
“So what that means from a producer standpoint, and I can speak to this personally, is, we try to supply our meat products to the region, and we take our cows to the abattoir, where they get slaughtered and then taken to the processor where they get butchered into whatever we need them to make,” she said.
“That can now no longer happen. So, from the abattoir standpoint, that means the potential of fewer animals are now going through the abattoir to be slaughtered, because there is nowhere to take them to be processed. That again, just generates less income, less animals moving through. And then financially, it’s an issue for the abattoir and an issue for producers in the area that are relying on these services for their businesses.”
Peterman’s remains the only local processor currently processing hanging carcasses and they have a long waiting list.
Some producers have made the decision to send their meat as far away as Thunder Bay at an increased cost and recently to process the 4H steers sold at the fall fair, the abattoir had to bring in a butcher to process the meat from down south.
“One of the things that we recently did was we actually invested in some equipment, and we flew a butcher from southern Ontario up to help process some of the 4H beef,” Desnoyers said. “From a behind the scenes standpoint, it was a lot of work, even to just get the paperwork done with [Ontario Ministry of Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness] (OMAFA) to allow the butcher to come to our facility and do that.”
Desnoyers said the Abattoir could see bringing a butcher in in the future to do this again but it’s not a realistic long-term solution and they need another meat cutter in the area.
The abattoir has processed everything from cows to bison, along with poultry like chickens and turkeys, but some of the equipment is getting on in age.
“We do try to provide as many services as we can for people, but the abattoir has been running for over 15 years now,” Desnoyers said.
“So with that comes a lot of maintenance issues, a lot of equipment that we have is now coming to the end of its life, and it needs to be replaced. Then just upgrades in general to our facility, like lighting and upgrading our standards so that they are constantly meeting the changes to regulations that are being made.”
Kelsey Desnoyers is the main point of contact for anyone looking to donate to the fundraiser, whether that be auction items or penny table prizes. Anyone looking to buy individual tickets or whole tables can also contact Desnoyers by phone at 289-439-9933 or by email at kdesnoyers@outlook.com.
