New kosher chicken processor for Ontario

Friday, March 18, 2016

by SUSAN MANN

Ontario chicken farmers will once again be able to supply birds to a provincially-based kosher processor starting next year, and the company is looking for growers.

On Thursday, Chicken Farmers of Ontario announced that it had approved Premier Kosher Inc., to process 50,000 chickens a week.

Kosher chicken processing is a new venture for the company, which has long been in the chicken business, says Premier Kosher president Paul Tzellos.

Premier Kosher is a unit of the Premier group of companies that does poultry growing, transporting, catching and finished product distribution.

Tzellos says they’re looking for growers “that are willing to be part of our growing organization. It (kosher) is a specialized market. We’re looking at working with some smaller growers that have the right capacity for the day’s production.”

The company has bought an existing plant and is currently renovating it, he notes. The plant is in Abingdon, part of West Lincoln, in the Niagara Region.

The Ontario chicken board has been searching for an Ontario-based kosher processor since Chai Kosher Poultry in Toronto closed in May 2013.

Marvid Poultry of Montreal, Canada’s only kosher poultry processing plant, has been supplying the Ontario market. It processes chickens grown in Quebec.

“It has been a major project of the board for the last 2.5 years to try and find an alternative source of chicken for Ontario kosher consumers,” says Michael Edmonds, Chicken Farmers communications and government relations director.

“We’re very excited that there has been a successful applicant,” he adds. “Obviously it means more jobs for Ontario.”

The new venture will employ up to 80 people and is projected to be operating by January 2017, according to a Chicken Farmers March 17 press release.

Ontario kosher consumers “were looking for a local option,” Edmonds says. “They like the idea of having fresh, locally-grown and locally-processed chicken. That’s what they had in previous years. ”

As for the demand, the 50,000 chickens a week Premier Kosher will process is “what was requested in the application,” Edmonds says.

The Kashruth Council of Canada will be working with the Premier kosher processing plant to provide kosher certification. The council is a non-profit organization.

The council will be responsible for the kosher program at the Premier plant, says Richard Rabkin, council executive director. The rabbis who slaughter the poultry are called shochet. They are trained by the council and are “part of our organization,” he explains.

“Kosher slaughter is quite a complex process and our rabbis here are experts in that process and have been in the industry for more than 30 years,” he explains.

Kosher rules require animals to be hand-slaughtered with no mechanized slaughter permitted.

Rabkin says, “the Jewish community is extremely pleased by (the March 17) announcement. It’s important that Canadian kosher consumers have choice and they have access to another supplier.”

Edmonds says Chicken Farmers is “providing (the allocation to supply the Premier Kosher plant) out of Ontario’s current allocation. The plan is to request additional resources from the national system.”

Under Canada’s supply management system, the national organization, Chicken Farmers of Canada, consults with provinces and decides how much chicken each province can produce based on processor, further processor and restaurant demand. The provincial organizations then allocate their share of the national production to their quota holders.

In 2015, Ontario chicken farmers held 36.5 million units of quota and produced 489 million kilograms of chicken, according to the Chicken Farmers of Ontario website. A unit of quota enables a farmer to grow 13 kilograms of chicken annually, and farmers must hold a minimum of 14,000 units of quota.

There’s no difference in how the chicken is grown for the kosher market compared to the conventional market, Edmonds says. “The kosher process is all about the slaughtering and the preparation (of the chicken).”

There have been a number of applicants over the years seeking board approval to establish a kosher processing plant. Edmonds says the board was looking for a business that has financial resources, chicken industry knowledge, access to an appropriate plant and the “engineering and processing expertise to make this a successful enterprise.” BF