Felix Schellenberg lifts a cement manhole cover revealing a cylindrical depression in an expansive cement floor. Around him is a construction zone. Ten craftsmen are in the midst of erecting a massive post and beam structure — a state-of-the-art slaughtering facility at Redstone in the Central Chilcotin.

It will be an abattoir known as Chilcotin Harvest Ltd. in the heart of cattle country, 150 kilometres west of Williams Lake.

The fir timber posts were all milled locally up the road by Chuck Mernett of Chezacut Lumber. The steel fittings bolted onto the posts to anchor them to the cement foundation were fashioned in Williams Lake by Cariboo Steel.

In the large gravel flat, cleared of beetle-killed pines, across Highway 20 from the old Stuart store, Felix surveys the construction site. It’s a project he’s been thinking about for a number of years in order to add value to the traditional method of raising beef, beyond the production of calves for the commodity market.

“I grew up in Switzerland,” Felix says. “I wanted to be a cowboy all my life.”

In 1979, he and his wife Jasmin moved to the Chilcotin and started ranching about 10 kilometres up the Chezacut Road from Redstone.

“We ranched conventionally for 20 years,” Felix says, “and sold our animals through the stockyards in Williams Lake.”

Then about a dozen years ago the Schellenbergs decided to do things differently. They decided to raise beef organically.

“That means no pharmas (pharmaceuticals) or chemicals,” Felix explains. “We haven’t vaccinated a calf in 12 years. And it’s amazing they don’t drop like flies either.”

He believes the key to economic survival in the ranching industry is diversity. That’s especially true in the Chilcotin.

“If we don’t diversify, our agriculture can’t exist,” he says.

When they started producing organic beef, the Schellenbergs started butchering their animals at Rodier Meats in Beaver Valley, then marketing their meat products in speciality stores in Vancouver. As costs escalated, the Schellenbergs knew they had to make some changes.

Last June they started construction of their own 8,000 square foot abattoir and meat processing facility.

According to Felix, the way something is done is as important as the act itself. This is especially true when it involves something as sensitive and controversial as slaughtering animals. He insists that the process involved in taking an animal’s life has to be done right.

The cement manhole cover that Felix carefully puts back in place, is the central fixture of the slaughtering facility. It’s the killing place, he explains. The bleeding point. A stainless steel bucket put inside the hole will capture all the blood from the slaughtered animals. Later the blood will be composted along with the other waste material from the slaughtering operation, including the SRMs (specified risk material) capable of harbouring BSE.

After much deliberation, the Schellenbergs came up with the spot on the property where the animals’ lives would be taken. It became the pivoting point of the whole operation, and the slaughterhouse and meat processing facilities were built around it.

Felix offers a tour of the facility explaining the green technology used in the construction. There are 10 inches of insulation all the way around, a geothermal heating source, and other energy efficient measures built into the design.

While a crane and three workers gingerly affix a fir post in place, Felix points out the hide room, the offal room, the kill floor and the stockyards with natural flooring leading into the killing area.

“What we are doing differently, the animals can look out into nature while they are being led into the slaughtering area.”

He says other animals will be tethered within view of the animal about to be slaughtered. Classical music will be played in the pens on kill days, to encourage a quiet atmosphere and to keep the animals at ease.

This all makes a difference to the quality of the meat and to the well-being of the animal, right to the end of its life.

The killing procedure is quick and painless. The animal is stunned with a bolt gun, then when it drops to the floor the animal is allowed to bleed, laying on its side.

“We got it through with the government, that we can bleed the animal on its side,” Felix says.

In conventional operations, like the giant meat processing plants in Alberta where 8,000 head of animals are killed in a 24-hour period, the animals are hoisted up by one hind leg once they are stunned, and bled from that position.

“Only when an animal is finished bleeding, is it dead,” he says. “Once it is dead, then we can raise its body up and pull its hide off and gut it in the normal manner.”

From the slaughter room the carcass goes into the drip cool room, then it is cut into quarters before going into the aging cooler, Felix explains.

The Schellenbergs did a lot of research, examining butchering facilities and methods used all over the world.

“We tried to combine all the good things — the ethics that suit the desire to come up with the highest quality product. All countries have good ideas.”

The Schellenbergs worked together with a Swiss company that specializes in designing and supplying small slaughtering and butcher shops, and worked with two architects and one engineering firm to come up with a design for the facility.

The meat processing section will utilize very sophisticated machinery to produce sausages, smoked meats and dried meat products. There is a small blast freezer room, a large freezer room and a cooler section to store cured and packaged meats.

The Schellenbergs have already hired master butcher Jakob Jud, who moved to Redstone with his wife and three children last September. While the facility is being built, Jud has donned a carpenter’s apron and is helping out with the construction.

One positive benefit the project has brought to the community already, in a country where demographics is shrinking student enrolment, the Juds’ three children are attending Alexis Creek School.

See CHILCOTIN, page A16