More effects from PR blitz in the summer of 2008...
Sounds like Darryl Williams was doing some boasting to the reporter:
"Williams was a medical doctor living in Mississauga when his wife persuaded him to move to the country."[/list]
I thought it was a D.Sc or Ph.D? That's a bit different than an M.D., eh?
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THINKING BIGTheStar.com | Small Business | Beef producers go back to nature
Beef producers go back to natureImageAARON HARRIS/TORONTO STAR
Grey-Bruce Beef co-founders Darryl Williams, left, and Mark Kuglin feed Angus and Simmental cattle at their stock farm near Markdale, Ont. Grey-Bruce Beef feeds its cattle a natural diet free of antibiotics and growth hormones aiming for better-tasting, healthy red meatJul 14, 2008 04:30 AM
Jerry LangtonSPECIAL TO THE STARDarryl Williams and Mark Kuglin are in the health-food business. That fact may surprise some people because their product is beef.
Williams and Kuglin are the founders of Grey Bruce Beef. All of their beef is guaranteed to be low-sodium, low in fat, free of transfats, high in omega-3 fatty acids and high in selenium, an essential micronutrient key to the manufacture of antioxidants.
It is, the founders say, beef that is actually good for your heart.
Although it took a while to develop, the philosophy behind Grey-Bruce Beef's product is simple and profoundly logical: beef isn't bad for us; it is the things we put into cattle to make more beef that can be unhealthy.
"We feed our cattle an all-natural diet, we don't give them growth hormones and we don't give them antibiotics," said Williams. "And the result is better tasting beef that's better for you."
While the feed Grey-Bruce uses is all-natural, however, it is also predominantly grain. Many experts in animal nutrition recommend a diet of grass or grass mixed with grain for cattle, as it's closer to their natural diet and better for their digestive system.
Still, the partners say they are already realizing a profit after launching sales in April.
"We have contracts to sell four times as much next year," said Kuglin. "We started late – contracts are usually made in January – but we didn't have any animals then."
Like many partnerships, Markdale, Ont.-based Grey-Bruce Beef started by chance.
Williams was a medical doctor living in Mississauga when his wife persuaded him to move to the country.
"She always loved horses and riding," he said. "And that's how she met Mark's wife, who is a horse trainer." As the two women got to know one another, so did their husbands.
Williams had a lucrative business selling horse bedding and Kuglin had been in the feed business for about 15 years, so the pair decided to put their interests and expertise together.
They founded All County Feed and Grain to sell high-quality horse feed to area farmers in 2006, but were soon approached by a number of beef farmers in the area who were looking for better feeds for their stock at lower prices.
Both Williams and Kuglin were impressed by the farmers' integrity and desire to make a good product, but they could also tell that things weren't working out well for them. "Beef was going the way of hogs in Ontario – towards extinction," said Kuglin. "But these people were dedicated to their way of life."
Williams and Kuglin realized that by getting quality feed to the beef farmers at a decent price they could not only make money, they could also improve the quality of the product.
And the partners say they changed the way the beef was farmed.
"We've learned a lot over the years," said Williams. "Look at the 1970s – for years they pumped cattle full of stilbestrol (an artificial growth hormone) until they found out it was a carcinogen and banned it." Since then, he said, red meat acquired a reputation as an unhealthy food – a situation made significantly worse with the bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, crisis in the 1990s.
So, the company swore off growth hormones, then banned antibiotics in healthy animals.
"We're not going to be cruel. If an animal gets sick and needs antibiotics, we will administer them," he said. "But that animal will be given a red ear tag and will be processed as mainstream beef, not Grey-Bruce Beef."
Convinced that the quantity-over-quality methods that have been used over the last generation or so have sapped both the nutrition and taste from beef, Grey-Bruce Beef went back in time.
"We're convincing farmers that they can make a better product by using traditional methods," Williams said.
"We're trying to get them to farm the same way their grandfathers did, not the way their fathers did."
But while it may be all natural, don't expect to see Grey-Bruce Beef with the word "organic" on its label.
"It's not organic, it's all natural," said Kuglin. "We could get it certified as organic, but we would have to get our farmers to buy specific certified organic feeds for three times the price – and they didn't want to do that."
Instead, they closely monitor the cattle and let the quality of the meat speak for itself.
A grilled eight-ounce Grey-Bruce Beef sirloin looks very much like any other version of the same cut. Even without being marinated, it cuts and chews easily, despite a very obvious lack of marbling.
The partners say it has a deep, earthy beef taste without any of the oiliness associated with richer cuts.
Compared with a similar cut from a supermarket prepared the same way, the difference is not unlike a supermarket tomato compared with one grown in your own yard.
Williams attributes a big part of that rich taste to the fact that his beef is local.
"You ever taste OJ in Florida? It's so much better than what we get here," he said. "It's because they use fresh oranges; for us, they pick green oranges and they ripen in the truck on the way up here; the difference is huge."
That situation, he said, is far worse for beef.
"Remember, this is an animal we're talking about," he said. "Imagine the stress of being taken from an Alberta farm in the freezing cold and trucked 3,500 miles to Ontario."
Because it's so tough on the animals – who are much more likely to become sick or be injured in transit – they need to be given extra antibiotics. And because they will be exposed to unfamiliar elements and microbes in Ontario, the cattle require even more antibiotics.
Williams estimates that getting beef from Alberta to Ontario can take up to 31 different steps and that the live cattle may travel up to 6,000 kilometres.
By comparison, a calf born and raised on an Ontario farm may make four trips and travel about 100 kilometres.
Using his samples as his sales pitch, Williams managed to secure a contract to supply burgers to Ottawa's outdoor festivals in June and July. It was an order to supply 100,000 burgers from 85 animals just two months after opening for business.
The company now has sales offices in Barrie, Ottawa, Lucknow in Bruce County and Heidelberg in Waterloo County, with another opening in Parry Sound next month.
Toronto, however, is another story. "I'd prefer to surround Toronto before moving in," said Williams.
But he may not have that option. Dave Melly – the head butcher at Healthy Butcher, a Toronto-based premium meat retailer – is considering bringing Grey-Bruce Beef cuts to sell here.
"They have an interesting philosophy," said Melly. "They do everything they can to control their feed, which is very much in line with what we do."
Grey-Bruce Beef is already available to people in the GTA through greybrucebeef.ca, the company's website.
"Sure we'll ship to Toronto," Williams said. "But we'd have to impose some minimum order restrictions." And the company has just signed with Target Wholesale – a Toronto-based barbecue and heating specialist – to distribute beef in the GTA.
When Grey-Bruce Beef's products do hit shelves in the Toronto area, they may find the premium beef market crowded with established players like Cumbrae's, St. Jamestown, Brown Brothers and Pusateri's, all saying they offer high-quality meats at reasonable prices. Carving out a niche among such trusted names could prove daunting.
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