My grandparents, Westburn & Gladys Hamilton moved during the depression from southern Saskatchewan back to Shawville. For a few years the farm was a mixed farm where they milked dairy cows, had a few pigs, chickens, horses and beef cattle. The herd that we operate now was started in 1945 when my grandfather bought our first purebred Hereford cow from Saskatchewan. This was the beginning of our purebred operation. Over seventy percent of the herd today goes back to that first foundation cow. The purebred Hereford herd grew gradually over the years. My parents, Laird & Mary Hamilton were involved in the operation and focused on developing a totally purebred Hereford herd. They, along with my grandparents, built up a freezer beef market. They would butcher 10 animals in the fall and 10 animals in the spring. The butchering and the cut and wrap were all done on the farm. They did this until food inspection regulations came in place. Our family asked the food inspection agency to send an inspector to the farm so that they could continue. However, the agency denied the request as they did not want to inspect part-time butchers. They quit the freezer beef business.
By the early 1990's I was involved full-time on the farm. We grew to the point of around 100 cows, and a land base of 460 acres plus some rented land. Our main income was selling purebred Hereford bulls and females. We were selling the remainder of our calves in the fall. The herd continued to be built by raising our own females.
We began the new millennium with an expansion…and it has continued for 7 years! In 2000, we decided to start to build a second purebred herd. We decided on Black Angus. We also started to produce F1 females. By 2001 we moved from back grounding our calves to finishing them.
With the Ministry of Environment starting to be an issue, we decided to start building wintering sites for the cows. As we were working on this, we kept future expansion of the cow herd in mind...then mad cow hit! Our expansion became immediate. The purebred and F1 heifer groups that we were planning to sell now were added to the herd. Today, we operate a 275+ cow herd, 250 head finishing barn,(as well as custom feeding) an on-farm store, and 1300 acre land base with 600 additional acres of rented land. We do all our own manure, cropping and harvesting, with the exception of combining. Our equipment line is old, with the exception of our main crop. We keep our haying equipment relatively new.
Our crops are 700 acres of hay and forage, 200 acres of corn silage, 100 acres of grain corn, 100 acres of small grains, and 700 acres pasture.
Besides selling Hereford & Angus bulls, and heifers, and F1 heifers, we also sell mineral & silo guard for International Stock Food, summer and winter water systems for Kelln Solar, as well as electric fencing supplies. We also house a Provincial Bull Test Station in the spring.
BSE brought about many changes for all of us. An on-farm store was not in our long range plans. However, before BSE we had been thinking about marketing our beef, as they had years earlier.
Our first thoughts of retailing were to sell sides to a local store that had a small butcher shop that served cottagers from the city. They were quitting the butcher shop, but were willing to sell our packaged beef. From there we went into other stores. We had trouble to keep a steady supply, and found the chest freezers hard to organize. So, we began to think about a walk-in freezer…then wondered about having a store front as well so that we could sell more beef. We are slowly working our way into restaurants, butcher shops, and the cities.
The store is located on the farm where we live, 3 miles south of Highway 148 in Shawville. Our kids, Jonathan, Rebecca, and Andrew, are young and we wanted to be home on the farm as they grow up.
Our beef is born and raised on our farm. We have our beef transported to Les Viandes de la Petite Nation in St-Andre de Avellin, north of Papineauville. The beef is aged for a minimum of 21 days, then it is cut and wrapped to our specifications. The packages are vacuum sealed for freshness. The butcher shop labels each package and boxes it. We pick up our frozen beef in either our insulated boxes or insulated trailer to bring it back to the store. Our walk-in freezer is large enough to hold 15-20 animals. We also keep two chest freezers in the store to display our products.
We sell our beef in several ways:
By producing our own beef from birth to finishing, having a store on the farm, with the ability to sell beef in a variety of ways to suit the customer, and having payment options (cash/debit/credit card) for our customers, we are quite unique.
The marketing of our beef has mostly been through word of mouth, people trying our beef and recommending it to friends. Our busiest time of year is in the summer, and we get lots of business from the cottagers. We do some advertising in newspapers, magazines, brochures, signage, etc. and we are just getting our website completed. Even though we have very little time for marketing, our business is growing. Our customers have been very loyal and great to tell friends about us.
For us, our Unique Selling Points are:
Many of our customers like coming to the farm to buy their beef. Most people have family descents that were raised on the farm, but surprisingly enough a lot of people no longer have a connection to the farm. People also like putting a face with the people who have grown their food. We have pictures in our store of our team, equipment, and cattle. They like to ask questions about how our beef is produced, and love getting resources that the Beef Information Centre provides free of charge.