Beyond Factory Farming

One of the most significant obstacles to increasing the market for local meat is lack of access to appropriate processing facilities. The meatpacking sector in Canada has become very concentrated and capital-intensive. Federal meat inspection regulations are designed for large scale facilities with high through-put and fast line speeds.

It is prohibitively expensive for smaller processing companies to install the type of equipment and pay the inspection fees necessary to meet federal inspection requirements. If meat is not shipped across provincial or national borders it does not have to be federally inspected however, many cities require meat sold in retail outlets to be federally inspected even when it was processed within the province.