Kill and Chill: Restructuring Canada's Beef Commodity Chain (review)

This is an excellent and long overdue study. Within a tightly written and effectively organized structure, and supplemented by informative visual material, Ian MacLachlan traces the development of the meatpacking industry in Canada from its beginnings in the late nineteenth century to the present day. As his title suggests, MacLachlan places meatpacking in the wider context of beef production. Beginning with cow-calf enterprises and continuing through feedlot and meatpacking operations to the boxed beef offered to consumers in supermarkets, he documents the far-reaching impact of what he calls "the value added chain" in transforming the meatpacking industry in Canada from local enterprises to nationally controlled companies in eastern Canada, and ultimately to a few vertically integrated corporations based in western Canada. Furthermore, with his contention that the scope of post-Fordist economies necessitated the rationalization of meatpacking operations close to the sources of production, MacLachlan effectively demonstrates one regional impact of the Canadian economy in the post-National Policy era.

The role of changing technology provides a crucial component in MacLachlan's arguments. Producers profited by advances in breeding technology such as artificial insemination, which allowed them to react more quickly and inexpensively to changing consumer demands. Ultrasound testing facilitated closer monitoring of beef productivity while satellite auctions helped free producers from the confines that had often meant consigning their animals to a single buyer. MacLachlan links the emergence of Canada's dominant feedlots in southern Alberta to irrigation technology. It is to his credit that he discusses the environmental issues associated with intensive feedlot operations, although he might have dwelt more fully on the subject of manure disposal with reference to technologies like composting and methane production.

Three developments in transportation technology affected the demographics of the industry. The impact of the new Canadian Pacific Railroad was felt in 1887 when western Canadian cattle made their way to the lucrative British market. Truck transport of cattle eventually ate into the monopoly enjoyed by the railroad by releasing stockyards from their need to locate near a rail line. The development of refrigeration extended the shelf life of meat, and refrigerated cars, or "reefers," made it possible to ship beef farther and consolidated the preeminence of eastern Canadian packinghouses before 1990. With respect to these points, MacLachlan might have commented on the impact of the truck on direct-to-packer sales. Moreover, while he discusses initiatives toward the establishment of a chilled-beef export trade, MacLachlan does not elaborate on the reasons for their failure.

MacLachlan's discussion of the effect of technology on packing-plant operations is thorough and illuminating. He documents the progress of packinghouse practices through the period of brute force to the development of mechanized tools and electronic sensors that guide the rate of progress on the disassembly lines. He further argues that packinghouse conveyors inspired Henry Ford's automobile assembly line, and he credits the Canadian Can-Pak system of continuous on-the-rail dressing for a 40-percent increase in production. On the other hand, he sees this technology as diminishing the need for skilled labor in packing plants. Other technological applications include electrical carcass stimulation to improve palatability and steam pasteurization to reduce pathogenic contamination. MacLachlan feels that animal welfare is addressed through technological advances such as specially curved drive alleys that increase the comfort of animals going to slaughter and a system for detecting whether or not an animal had been under stress immediately prior to slaughter by testing its carcass.

This is more than a study of meatpacking or the technology that enabled its development. MacLachlan also integrates labor and the dynamics of retailing and marketing into his discussion. The path of the historic players in the meatpacking industry provides a further unifying ingredient to his overall theme of transformation. Because of its frequent references to practices in the United States, Kill and Chill...