#BehindTheBeef with #LoveCDNbeef

As a follow up to my recent Overwaite Plant tour, last weekend I had the immense pleasure of spending an hour picking the brain of one of BC’s finest ranching families at my local Save-On-Foods.

BC Cattlemen’s Association, in conjunction with the Overwaitea Food Group hosted a weekend of “Meet a Rancher” events across the lower mainland and Kelowna as part of their Beef Round-up. I headed out to North Vancouver and met up with Laura and Mark from the Beautiful Bar K Ranch. Located 20 miles North of Prince George, BC., the Bar K Ranch is around 8,000 acres of forest, range and lakes located on rolling hills called “eskers”, a type of glacial formation. Armed with a beautiful display depicting their family ranch, a video slide show, and hoards of take home info (brochures, recipe cards, and more) I had a lot to learn! 

Mark came from a ranching family, and when they met and married, Laura adopted the cowboy life. In addition to the nearly 1,000 cattle that Mark and Laura raise each year, they also raised two sons on the ranch, one of which currently works as a cowboy along side his parents.  All three of them, plus their daughter in law have degrees in animal science (although Laura’s daughter in law is currently studying away at UBC to become a dietician!).

Laura was quick to answer all of my questions with a smile. She was an absolute pleasure and it was blatantly obvious that she loves what she does and is proud to be a rancher. I was pleased to learn that not only is the Bar K Ranch fully committed to providing a healthy and safe product to consumers by employing the “Quality Starts Here” program, but they also give back to the community through school tours, and saw around 600 school kids at the ranch last year!

I was also interested to learn that all the cattle on the ranch is tagged with a bar code type tag that can be scanned to track everything from vaccination records to feeding and medical treatments. All of which is downloadable to a spreadsheet.

While Mark was happily selling beef to passing customers (and insisting that I check out the pictures of his horses before I left!), Laura went on to tell me that her favorite part about being a rancher is working outdoors (aside from in the ugly rainy days!) with the animals, and the fact that no day is the same. As if she doesn’t keep busy enough on the ranch, during recent down time she took the TESOL certification and if she ever had to do something else, she said she would love to teach English as a second language! 

Save-On had a killer deal on steaks, and Mark was quite the sales man! I didn’t see a single cart pass me that didn’t have a pack of steaks in it! Including this vegetarians’ cart!

I was also excited to learn about the environmental farm planning that Laura does on the side. Ranching often gets a bad rep for not being sustainable, so learning about this initiative was definitely intriguing. 

So a huge thank you to Mark and Laura for spending time with me and letting me into your lives, and to Save-On-Foods, BC Cattlemen’s Association, and of course Canada Beef.