This N.B. farmer's got beef that she can't ship to customers who want it

Jessica Frenette's got beef.

She's got very special beef on her farm north of Woodstock, Bird's Hill Farms, that she would like to sell to eager, hungry foodies and chefs around the Maritimes.

And she's got very specific beef — a complaint, a problem — with the federal regulations that prevent her from doing that.

"From Nova Scotia, P.E.I., Newfoundland specifically, people are reaching out, wanting our product, either on their menu or to try," Frenette said.

Bird's Hill is the biggest producer of full-blood Japanese Wagyu beef in the region.

When provinces began talking about eliminating interprovincial trade barriers earlier this year, Frenette hoped that would create an opening for the next step in her vision for her business.

Potential customers "think because of what happened on the news … that now we have the capacity to send to them, and unfortunately that's not the reality," Frenette said.

"We are not able to send them our product right now. We can only sell in New Brunswick. It's definitely something that's hindering our growth potential."

Bird's Hill Farm is the biggest producer of full-blood Japanese Wagyu beef in the region. (Michael Heenan/CBC)

Wagyu is a distinctive kind of beef with a large amount of intramuscular fat — mostly due to the cow's particular genetics but also thanks to the extra effort farmers make to feed them properly and reduce their stress levels.

The result is a less dense meat with a richer, buttery flavour that fetches high prices.

Generally, meat processing, including the inspector of abattoirs, comes under provincial jurisdiction.

But if the meat is going to cross provincial borders, Canadian Food Inspection Agency regulations apply.

They're often more stringent than the provincial rules.

WATCH | 'It seems strange and weird': Federal rules block Wagyu exports:Hungry foodies and chefs hoped opening up internal trade would let them buy Jessica Frenette’s Wagyu beef. They were wrong.

To comply, Frenette would have to ship her cattle to the federally regulated Atlantic Beef Products abattoir in Albany, P.E.I.

She said her low volume — she processes one or two cows at a time — and the costly requirement to freeze the meat at that plant would eat up all her profits.

Wagyu is also graded differently, she said.

"We're a small operation of a very specific product that needs to be processed in a very specific way, and it's just not economically feasible for us to use the federal abattoir," she said.

That creates a seemingly absurd situation for chefs in cities like Halifax with thriving restaurant scenes.

Wagyu is a distinctive kind of beef with a large amount of intramuscular fat, making it a less dense meat with a richer, buttery flavour that fetches high prices. (Michael Heenan/CBC)

Greg Burns, the executive chef at the Prince George Hotel in downtown Halifax, said he can import Wagyu more easily from Australia than from Bird's Hill, a five-hour drive away.

"I can access mostly anything I want all around the world but yet I can't use a local farm that's doing great, in the Maritimes," he said.

Burns, who is from Moncton, points out that Frenette's Wagyu would be considered safe to eat in Sackville, N.B., but unsafe 10 minutes away in Amherst, N.S.

"It seems strange and weird," he said.

The rules exist for a reason, according to Tyler McCann, the managing director of the Canadian Agri-Food Institute, an independent think tank based in Ottawa. 

Wagyu is a kind of beef with a large amount of intramuscular fat that give them a special flavour prized by foodies and chefs. (Jacques Poitras/CBC)

Frenette may set a high standard for the processing of her cattle because that's what high-end chefs and customers want, but that's not universal.

"The problem is these rules exist because not every place does take the utmost care with what they're doing and what they're producing," McCann said.

The institute published a report in 2022 that outlined how complex the issue is. 

Many provinces have less stringent standards than the federal standard.

Under Canada's international trade agreements, other countries' meat shipped to Canada is subject to the stricter national rules. If domestic beef could move around the country at a lower standard, that could trigger retaliation from a major trading partner like China.

Internal trade an issue for 20 years

Even so, McCann says, the idea of harmonizing federal and provincial rules to open up internal trade is a frequent topic.

"If you look back at communiqués from federal-provincial-territorial agricultural ministers' meetings over the last 20 years, this is something that every two or three years is a major issue and they're going to try to take it and fix it," he said.

In a statement late Monday, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said it was working with provinces, including through pilot projects, to help producers market their goods across Canada.

Provincial Agricultural Minister Pat Finnigan said in a statement that "New Brunswick continues to look for opportunities in this space" and he would raise the issue at a federal-provincial-territorial ministerial meeting this week.

Bird's Hill Farms got into Wagyu beef nearly 10 years ago. 'It was supposed to be a small, little operation,' said Jessica Frenette.  (Mike Heenan/CBC)

But McCann said there's little impetus for change when only five per cent of the meat in Canada is slaughtered in non-federal abattoirs, and an even smaller share of that volume would ship to other provinces.

"This really matters to a small number of producers," he said.

If New Brunswick were to raise its provincial inspection standards to match the more stringent federal rules, that would solve the problem, he said.

Frenette says some aspects of the federal rules, like needing CFIA inspectors on site, would be too expensive for a small producer like her. 

'Supposed to be a small, little operation'

She envisions other options, like a single regulatory system for inspections across Atlantic Canada, that would at least let her ship her Wagyu to Burns and other regional chefs.

"My hope was that we would be able to develop a memorandum of understanding where Nova Scotia would say, 'Well, if your beef is good for New Brunswickers, then we by default say it's also good for Nova Scotians,' and vice versa."

Bird's Hill got into Wagyu eight years ago, and at first "it was supposed to be a small, little operation." 

But Frenette now believes she could double or triple her herd if different rules were in place.

One thing she has learned is that political rhetoric about opening up interprovincial trade comes with a big asterisk.

"Trying to figure out how we take that next step as we continue to grow has been a tough thing to navigate," she said.