If you read any of the bloggs on the Internet about truck driving in Canada then at some point you will here the term Brooks crop up, well this is a small town in south east Alberta right on the side of highway 1, and if you have driven passed Brooks then you will have noticed the massive Canadian flag flying at a big facility on the outskirts of the city, this is in fact Lakeside packers, one of the largest meat processing plants that i have ever seen or been to, and if you don't notice the huge flag then the smell of the feed lot across the road will have grabbed your attention
search you tube for lakeside packers fly over and watch its just amazing how many cattle you see [i cant seem to get it on here]
The Feed lot holds 78.000 cattle when full
Once passed this point the cattle are put into holding pens and moved when there time has come, they move into smaller pens and then up a walk Way into the pant there they walk then are carried by a conveyor the last few feet,
lakeside packers work two shifts starting at around five in the morning, and can finish in the early hours of the next morning depending how the day goes and or if they have a breakdown and in this time they will process around 5.000 head approx 25.000 a week.
Now that's a lot of Beef
The salt i have taken there is used for treating the hides,[ three to four loads a week] once the hides have been fleshed and trimmed they are cooked in a strong salt solution before being packed by hand onto pallets and then loaded into containers ready for shipment all over north America and the world Hide from here often go to japan and south Korea and can be in containers for three months.
Hides are a commodity just like gold and silver and can change hands and be traded before reaching there final destination.
At the other end of the plant the Beef in packed and shipped all over North America and the company above is just one of many transporting it to customers
if anybody wants to add to this feel free and of course it is the opinion of myself and the information i have gathered
Canadian beef is the best tasting beef i have tasted
and is best served blue with pepper sauce and fries
I had to wait while they pulled over for us to pass and when they are on the highway
Once passed this point the cattle are put into holding pens and moved when there time has come, they move into smaller pens and then up a walk Way into the pant there they walk then are carried by a conveyor the last few feet,
The salt i have taken there is used for treating the hides,[ three to four loads a week] once the hides have been fleshed and trimmed they are cooked in a strong salt solution before being packed by hand onto pallets and then loaded into containers ready for shipment all over north America and the world Hide from here often go to japan and south Korea and can be in containers for three months.
