Chilcotin Harvest, is a provincially inspected slaughterhouse, located in Redstone, BC, west of Alexis Creek. Known as ‘The Abattoir,” Chilcotin Harvest was built over the last two years with local lumber and builders, and has been a dream of Felix and Jasmine Schellenberg’s for many years.
Prior to the abattoir, the closest butcher for those living in the Chilcotin, was over two hundred kilometers away. “Animal welfare is number one", daughter Melanie Reinelt says. And without the added stress of hauling the animals, the abattoir accomplishes just this.
Jakob Jud (pictured right), a Master Butcher from Switzerland, moved to Redstone with his wife Elsbeth and his family to work at the abattoir.
Chilcotin Harvest butchers certified organic animals as well as non-organic animals. Organic animals are free from antibiotics, vaccinations, and deworming.
Keeping with their mission statement: “Chilcotin Harvest where we harvest livestock with respect and where we strive for excellence in customer service and product quality,” the ultimate goal of the abattoir is to create a low stress environment for the animals. This includes housing the animals with other animals and playing classical music to the animals through a loudspeaker the night before they are butchered.
One of the unique things about the abbatoir is that it was designed to respect the animal’s dignity and release their spirit. Inside the abattoir, symbols on the floor “pay respect to the animals, especially the cow which is the main animal that comes through here,” Melanie said.
Meat is cut and processed according to customer’s wants and organically seasoned. “Whatever we process, it doesn’t matter if it is an organic animal or a regular animal, we just use organic spices and sea salt with no additives and no fillers” to add flavour to the meats, comments Jakob. “This puts a lot more demand for knowledge on the butcher, because you have to get the right consistency and need to know a lot more to get the coagulation needed to hold your meats together, when you do not use fillers or helpers,” says Melanie, adding that “everybody benefits from 100% organic ingredients even if their meat is not.”
Once the meat is processed, is flash-frozen overnight in a –30˚C freezer. Freezing the meat at a high speed slows the development of ice crystals in the meat. Ice crystals will spread the meat fibers and then when you thaw and cook the meat you loose much of the juice in the meat, Jakob says. All meat is then stored in a –18˚C freezer until customers come to pick it up.
In the dry room, meat such as buendnerfleisch is cured for about a year. “Jakob is not just a butcher, he is also an artist,” Melanie said with a smile.
The abattoir is able to handle ten beef per day or thirty small animals such as sheep and pigs. In hunting season, they are completely booked up to butcher and process wild game meats.
“Pasture to Plate” products are for sale on site. These products are made from grass-fed animals from the Schellenberg’s Rafter 25 Ranch and then processed at Chilcotin Harvest. In addition to usual meat cuts, unique products include: cowboy steaks (made with Jakob’s special recipe), meatloaf, beef jager, buendnerfleisch, lamb and beef bone broth, juniper sausage, Mexican sausage, and Chilcotin sausage.
Eating organically raised animals ensures that you are not getting hormones or antibiotics. Grass-fed animals are tastier, with more ‘bite,’ than grain-fed animals and the Omega 3 to Omega 6 fat ratio of grass-fed animals is healthier for you, says Melanie.
July 24 will be the official opening of Chilcotin Harvest and tours of the abattoir and food will be given out.
For more information about Chilcotin Harvest products or having your animals processed by Jakob, please call Melanie at (250) 394-4000.