KELOWNA – A Vancouver Island farmer has reactivated and expanded a Kelowna abattoir, providing processing to about 80 farmers.
“I’ve processed hogs and lambs from 100 Mile (and) Vanderhoof, so people need the services, but about 80% of my customers are within an hour,” says operator Dave Semmelink, who opened Creekside Meats in 2021 to process beef, pork, poultry and sheep.
The venture is Semmelink’s second agricultural initiative. The South African-born farmer started Lentelus Farms in Courtenay in 2014, growing vegetables, beef, some grain and forage. Most of the produce is sold at his popular roadside farmstand in Courtenay.
Semmelink made the leap to Kelowna in 2021, signing a 15-year lease for the Kelowna abattoir shortly after former owner Sue Haley gifted the 36-acre property where it’s located to the Okanagan Tree Fruit Project, a registered charity focused on food rescue and food security.
The lease term is long enough for him to justify the significant capital investment needed to operate the facility, formerly operated by Kevin Morin of Kelowna Free Graze Lamb.
Semmelink recognized the continuing demand among meat producers for slaughter capacity and the rising interest in local meat. Family ties in Kelowna – his father is a former vineyard manager at Summerhill Pyramid Winery – also made the location attractive.
Semmelink has expanded the abattoir and added new equipment, retrofitting three shipping containers for processing and cold storage. The improvements were supported by a private investor in Vancouver.
“We added to the facility little by little as demand grew – beef processing, pork processing and substantially increasing capacity for chicken and lamb,” he explains. “We‘re capable of processing several hundred lamb a year, 200 beef and a couple hundred pigs. Plus, we regularly process larger quantities of chicken; 600 is a typical day.”
Six full-time staff work four days a week, with six more on-call as needed.
Staff have included graduates of an eight-week hands-on, humane meat processing program he taught at the abattoir in summer 2024 for eight students. Semmelink completed a similar course a decade ago through BC Meats at Gunter Brothers Meats on Vancouver Island. It sparked him to move from livestock farmer to processor.
Semmelink’s course taught low-stress livestock handling, ethical slaughter procedures, whole carcass breakdown and custom meat cutting, packaging and safety. Students also learned value-added techniques like sausage and bacon-making, and how to manage a small-scale operation.
He’s taught similar courses funded by WorkBC’s Community Work Force Response Grant in Port Alberni and Campbell River, the latter offered in conjunction with North Island College.
Semmelink says creativity is essential to farming in BC without inherited land. He began with a $50,000 student loan and has relied on side hustles, grants and government support to develop his businesses.
“We’ve been recipient of several grants – the meat processing facilities specifically,” he says. “A $150,000 IAF grant from the Small Food Processor Scale-Up Program was instrumental for scaling up last year, helping add three full-time staff.”
Growing capacity
For smaller cattle producers like Kevin Day, Creekside Meats fills a gap left following the retirement of Dave Marshall, who operated an abattoir at Longhorn Farms near the Kelowna International Airport.
“Having a provincially inspected facility located right here in Kelowna is a godsend,” says Day. “It allows me to finish beef for my family and friends and also lets me consider expanding my business to finishing all of my calves from my 50-cow herd for direct sales here.”
In October, Creekside began working with Toronto-based distributor Niku Farms, aggregating meat from local farmers and ranchers. By aggregating local production, Semmelink sees opportunities to support smaller operators’ growth and profitability.
A member of BC Meats and the Small-Scale Meat Producers Association, Semmelink believes a fresh surge of interest in local purchasing in response to US trade tensions could translate into a greater boost for locally grown food.
Semmelink plans to hand day-to-day management of the Kelowna abattoir to shop manager Sam Munns. Originally from England, Munns helped build the business from the ground up, collaborating with Semmelink for three years.
The transition will allow Semmelink to spend more time at his home farm in Courtenay, where he hopes to establish a provincially inspected abattoir on the Island for a select group of local poultry growers to supply his meat box subscription program.
Ideally, Creekside would process red meat, beef, lamb and pork, with Okanagan chickens processed perhaps by another student thinking of starting a poultry abattoir in Kelowna.
Semmelink notes that shorter courses give students a quicker way to learn the trade and gain employment. He’d gladly hire someone with 20 years of experience if he could find them. Without the overhead of a mortgage payment, he pays employees above industry average, but the cost of housing makes worker retention a challenge.
“If I could offer accommodation, I would probably be able to hire more staff. But since I lease, I can’t justify building housing on the farm for employees,” says Semmelink.
While he sees further potential in value-added processing down the line – things like dry-curing meat for charcuterie – perhaps supplying local businesses like wineries to create higher meat demand and jobs, Creekside Meats is a humane slaughter plant first.
“My Vancouver business partner and I both see meat processing as essential to farming,” he says. “If we could operate five days a week and supply more meat cutting shops, we’d be super happy.”
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