Despite serious setbacks from the pandemic, an innovative beef branding program is on track to make even greater gains that benefit consumers and beef producers.
CARVE Premium Ontario Beef is a brand launched by Flanagan Foodservice in 2017. Flanagan’s is a food distributor with 8,000 customers across the province, including restaurants, health care institutions, caterers, hotels and resorts.
“For the first two and a half years, we were growing in the double digits every year,” says Brad Heard, the company’s protein brand manager. “We were the first in the food service distribution industry to create a brand that identifies local farmers and we had tremendous interest and success — especially in the Toronto market.”
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Heard says that when COVID-19 hit in March 2020, they were even planning to increase offerings under the program by 25 per cent, including ground beef and portion steaks.
“We lost a lot of momentum, and the entire landscape changed in this industry,” he says. “Restaurants are pivoting to takeout items and there have been a lot of challenges over the past two years selling primal cuts.” There are eight primal cuts in a beef cow — chuck, rib, loin, round, flank, short plate, shank and brisket.
The company did, however, sell more portion steaks last summer. They went from selling about 6,000 cases in a year to 10,000 cases of that product in six months.
“End-users were still looking for the CARVE quality and experience, including the fact that it’s local product,” he says. But now, he explains, restaurant owners don’t have the staff with the skills to deal with whole muscle cuts — they need something they can open and throw on the grill for the takeout market. That, and the increased demand, is why Flanagan’s is launching a CARVE portion steak program in 2022.
Quality Assurance crucial
“Quality assurance programs enable brand marketing opportunities like CARVE,” says John Baker, director of brand management and business development for Ontario Corn-Fed Beef.
“Producers can see how what they do on the farm becomes marketable with foodservice distribution customers.”
Baker emphasizes that, while the CARVE program uses Ontario Corn Fed Beef quality assurance certification, it’s just one example, and new beef branding elsewhere in Canada could be based on, for instance, the Verified Beef Production Plus program.
He explains that the programs are necessary to ensure that the marketing claims companies such as Flanagan’s are making — such as locally produced beef using ethical on-farm production practices — can be backed up.
There are 512 Ontario feedlots registered in the Ontario Corn Fed Beef quality assurance program and in 2021, that represented 330,000 head of cattle, some of which were sourced from Western Canada.
The partnership with Flanagan’s came about through the Ontario Beef Market Development program, a joint marketing effort between the Beef Farmers of Ontario and the Ontario Cattle Feeders’ Association.
“They (Flanagan’s) have been a terrific partner — it’s exactly what the market development program was set up for — to increase the share of Ontario branded beef in the Ontario market,” he says.
Baker says he’s working closely with the company on new product offerings.
“The CARVE program is highlighting to producers that they can take advantage of market opportunities through quality assurance programs,” he says.
Bottom-line benefits
In an evaluation report on the program published in 2018, market analyst Kevin Grier wrote, “Based on price flexibility analysis it can be calculated that the basis or local price spread in Ontario is stronger by about $2-$3/cwt or about $25-$30/head due to the corn fed program.” He was careful to note that the added value applies to all cattle marketed in Ontario and that the program has had positive effects right through the entire beef and cattle supply chain, from retail to the cow-calf farmer.
Baker is convinced that the CARVE model could be replicated across the entire country and emphasizes that the quality assurance certification is based largely on good production practices that producers are already using.
“It’s just a matter of going through the audited process — lots of producers are already doing the right thing, but there needs to be verification to demonstrate that to the market,” he says.
Baker says he and his colleagues are currently working on a validation process for sustainably raised beef. He adds that the Ontario Corn Fed Beef quality assurance program is also a certifying body for the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (CRSB).
“This provides producers with additional financial incentives to certify their operations to meet the standards set by the CRSB,” he says.
Heard says that the demand for local products has not let up, and in fact was magnified through the pandemic, which is why Flanagan Foodservice will continue the CARVE Premium Beef program.
“We’re fully committed to CARVE over the long term,” Heard says. “As the community continues to want to spend their money in local establishments with local products, we’re going to be there to support them.”
