Can someone give me a short explanation as to how some guy running a program is about to get himself cornholed in a Canadian pokey for some sort of wrong doings with meat packing?
Though.. the irony of a guy who is going to get his ass packed for criminal meat packing...
errr.. ignore that last line..
Once upon a time, about three years ago, in addition to being Admissions Director et al at Rocklyn Academy, Darryl Williams ran a feed store with business partner Mark Kuglin called
All County Feed and Grains.
At some point, Williams and Kuglin thought it would be a good idea if farmers fed their cows a "natural" predominately grain diet (I imagine ideally, and perhaps explicitly, purchased from All County Feed and Grains), and that the meat from these cows could then be marketed as a more upscale product. Williams and Kuglin then founded another business,
Grey Bruce Beef Marketing Ltd., to handle said marketing. (Btw, cows have evolved as foraging browsers and do not "naturally" eat a lot of grain.).
The idea was sold to the community as a boost to the local economy. "We're trying to do our part to preserve a way of life here. Farmers are the heroes. They have been taking all these knocks for years," said Kuglin in a
Meaford Express article from May, 2008. Williams and Kuglin promised the farmers a very attractive price per cow. From the same article:
"The farmers are making a decent profit per animal. Those that have seen it are believers. We want to continue to flow profitability to the farmers," said Williams.
"Our farmers are entitled to a decent profit for a good product," Kuglin added.[/list]
In order to qualify their cows for later Grey Bruce Beef Marketing purchase, farmers had to enter into an agreement with Williams and Kuglin regarding the cows' diet. Certainly, verification had to be done
somehow, to ensure that these cows were fed a predominately grain diet as specified. One such way
could potentially entail attaching a certain amount of grain purchase per cow to the later transaction of meat to be marketed, although this is pure speculation on my part. From the same article:
Kuglin explained that animals in their program stick to a strict regiment for how they're fed and raised. Cattle on the program are naturally grain-fed, they are hormone-free, they are antibiotic-free and they are implant-free. All producers of the All County Feed Program comply with strict on-farm audited feed, husbandry and animal management guidelines.[/list]
Anyway, a number of farmers signed up for this program. Cattle raised on this predominately grain diet were subsequently sold to Grey Bruce Beef Marketing, slaughtered, and their meat marketed. And then ... a number of farmers did
not got paid for their cows. One family is out over $100,000, according to at least
one article. That's a hefty sucker punch to a family that makes its living off the land like that.
From what I can tell, neither
All County Feed and Grains nor
Grey Bruce Beef Marketing Ltd. are currently in business. The O.P.P. seems to think that what transpired was
fraud (to the tune of somewhat over $750,000).
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What does all this have to do with
Rocklyn Academy? What indeed, does an
Admissions Director actually
do at one of these "emotional growth" schools if not ...
market? Heck, Darryl Williams even makes note of it in his credentials on
Rocklyn Academy's staff page:
Darryl WilliamsD.Sc. (Medicine), M.B.A. (Marketing)
Admissions Officer[/list]
If goods and services are alleged to be "not as advertised" in one arena of a professional marketer's life, not to mention charges of fraud involving over three-quarters of a million dollars, what are we to think of their
other endeavors? Inquiring minds want to know.
