Chicken Farmers of Ontario seeks kosher processor

Monday, April 28, 2014

by SUSAN MANN

Chicken Farmers of Ontario is stepping up its efforts to find someone to process Ontario chicken for the province’s kosher market, which has gone without Ontario-supplied kosher chicken for a year.

On Friday afternoon, Chicken Farmers posted a “request for proposals” on its website. The notice says businesses that are interested should submit a business plan that outlines their “interest, intent, experience and ability to process Ontario chicken in Ontario for kosher markets immediately and in the long-term.” Business plans must be submitted electronically and are due by May 30.

A year ago, Ontario’s only kosher chicken processor, Chai Kosher Poultry, closed its Toronto facility. Canada’s only remaining kosher processor, Marvid Poultry of Montreal, has been supplying the Ontario market using chicken grown in Quebec.

Michael Edmonds, Chicken Farmers of Ontario communications and government relations director, has noted chicken board regulations don’t prohibit the movement of processed chickens across provincial borders.

In its April 25 website notice, Chicken Farmers says it plans to provide a long-term supply of Ontario chicken to the successful applicant or applicants. But Edmonds says in a recent interview the amount of supply they will be getting “will be determined by the successful proposal. We’re not putting an upper or lower limit on it.”

As for where Ontario will be getting the supply of chicken to provide to the successful applicant or applicants, Edmonds says the “supply management system has determined that it will make the chicken available. We will be responsible for finding the chicken.”

Ontario farmers will be growing the chicken but how the allocation will be determined “has yet to be determined. But there is an expectation that our system (either through the national system or through Ontario) will provide it,” he says.

There are different estimates that could be used to define the size of Ontario’s kosher market, Edmonds says. “We’re not specifying in this proposal. Part of it is for applicants to understand the market and to have done enough research to give us an indicator of the kind of market they’re looking to fill.”

Edmonds says community sources have told the organization that Marvid isn’t able to meet the demand. “The existing supplier may be fulfilling certain channels, there are a number of channels that are not being adequately supplied.” The community has also told Chicken Farmers they want a “local solution.”

Ontario, and particularly Toronto, is the largest kosher market in Canada, Edmonds says.

Richard Rabkin, managing director of the Toronto-based Kashruth Council of Canada, the largest kosher certifying agency in the country, couldn’t give a number for the amount of chicken the kosher market is short.

But for people who can’t get the kosher chicken they need, Rabkin says some are eating less chicken while others are substituting with more processed and packaged chicken, such as patties in the shapes of animals, from international sources, such as Israel. Rabkin says that’s what he’s doing in his family. “My kids eat that.”

Rabkin says the “folks over at Marvid are certainly trying hard and we appreciate the efforts they are engaged in.” But consumers, kosher establishments and caterers who talk to Rabkin “are saying that there’s not enough chicken.”

Rabkin says consumers call or email him “probably every day” about the lack of kosher chicken in Ontario.

Chicken Farmers’ efforts to supply the Ontario kosher market with Ontario chicken by requesting interested businesses to submit business plans is “a really good idea,” he says. “We need to find a solution for kosher consumers of Ontario. We need an alternate supply.”

There are about 300,000 Jews in Ontario. There are varying degrees of how much kosher “people keep with, some people keeping strictly kosher while others eating only kosher meat,” Rabkin says. About 50 per cent of the province’s Jewish population eats kosher to some degree and currently, they “are not getting their kosher chicken needs met,” he says.

The Chicken Farmers web notice says applications to process chickens for the Ontario kosher market will be evaluated based on a number of criteria. Some of them include:

• Strength of strategic vision.
• Knowledge of the chicken industry.
• Ability to start processing Ontario chickens in accordance with kosher certification standards with three months.
• Commitment to meeting Chicken Farmers policies and regulations.

“We’re expecting proposals that would understand the needs of the community; understand the (kosher) certification process that would meet the needs of that community and would understand the specific processing requirements that would be required,” Edmonds says. “This is very much about supplying Ontario chicken to an Ontario processor. This is meeting local kosher demand.”

The key “to this is making sure that it’s an Ontario solution for Ontario consumer demand,” he explains.

Edmonds says he doesn’t know yet how the chicken board will review the proposals.

Since Chai closed, Edmonds says the chicken board has been working with “several entities and determined that it would be appropriate to make the process open to all applicants.” Putting out the request for proposals doesn’t mean those talks have failed, he notes.

At this stage, “even though we have been working with certain potential business partners, this process does open it up,” he says.

Edmonds says he doesn’t know if any business plans have been received yet. Rabkin says there’s a lot of interest to do this and people have been calling him but “once they realize they need the right type of facility and it requires a lot of capital, it does weed some people out. There are a couple of people who have met with us and have expressed their interest and they’re investigating certain avenues. We’re hopeful.” BF