Women offer ‘cutting-edge’ skills

ARMSTRONG – To work in meat processing, one requires strength, passion and specialized skills.

But for Amber Baryla, getting into poultry processing came out of necessity. She ended up falling in love with her new career choice anyway.

“I didn’t come from a farm family. I worked in the auto industry in sales for a dealership in Kelowna,” Baryla says. “I became sick of the city life and wanted to buy a farm. The easiest thing to get into was chickens.”

She bought a farm in Armstrong in 2017 along with some chickens in the hope of marketing them to wineries in the area, but soon learned slaughter dates could be hard to come by.

“There was nobody to do chickens,” she says. “I found a place in Enderby, so I called them, and they said they didn’t have time. I hung up the phone, sat in my house for 10 minutes, called them back and asked if they wanted to sell their plant.”

In 2018, the plant’s owners agreed to a handshake deal and Baryla took possession of the government-certified abattoir and renamed it JJ Family Farms.

“I had no idea what I was getting myself into,” she says.

Following water tests, inspections and district approval, Baryla, also a single mom, obtained her licence to process chickens and embarked into the unknown.

“I got my licence and the first day the inspector … came up and asked me how I was going to process the chickens and I said, ‘I’ve never touched a raw chicken before.’ He said if you survive today, you’ll be just fine,” Baryla recounts. “So, we made it through that day – we did 60 chickens. It took 10 hours to do them, and I thought it was a great and viable career option for me.”

The business has grown steadily since, serving farmers from Golden to Grand Prairie to Chilliwack.

“My phone started ringing off the hook the second I was licensed,” she notes. “I love the people that I get to deal with. Farmers are happy and everyone is thankful that you’re doing it because they don’t want to do it themselves. The inspectors are amazing. I haven’t had a bad day.”

But her road to success has not been without bumps along the way.

“I had a massive fire a few years ago and my plant burned to the ground when we were in it. I rebuilt the plant and it’s bigger now than it was before,” Baryla says.

Baryla and her small team process four days a week and she is looking to obtain a cut-and-wrap licence. They process chickens, turkeys, guinea hens, pigeons, squab and pheasants.

But recruiting workers has been a challenge.

“I kind of lucked out the last couple years but I’ve never had consistent staff one year to the next,” Baryla says. “I have called my mom on so many days to help me out when I’m short-handed.”

Baryla’s children also help out in the plant whenever they can.

Overall, Baryla is happy she took the risk and entered the sector on a whim.

Passion rubbed off

Erika Maarhuis, owner of Magnum Meats in Rock Creek, also had no plans to work in meat processing. But her husband Chad’s infectious passion for the profession rubbed off on Maarhuis and she too developed a fondness for the work and people involved in meat processing.

“My husband really had a passion and art for cutting meat. Through that and growing our business, I formed a passion as well,” she says. She and Chad established Magnum Meats in 2009.

Chad died suddenly two years ago, leaving Erika and their three children to continue the business.

Maarhuis overcame the personal challenge of losing her husband and the business challenges that came with the pandemic to maintain the business at full operating capacity.

Directly following the sudden loss of her husband, Maarhuis learned that the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary received a $500,000 grant to support the growing demand for meat processing in the area.

“At the moment, we are still working with the regional district on how that would fit into the picture of it being accessible to increase our business and provide a service to the community and how that works all together,” Maarhuis says.

Magnum Meats employs eight staff members between their slaughterhouse and cutting facilities.

“Our staff were trained under my husband, and we carry the same standard and quality that he had trained them for,” Maarhuis says.

She runs the slaughterhouse and meat shop as well as working in the office.

“Almost all of my staff members are women, and they are fantastic at what they do,” Maarhuis says. “We have two men working for us and they are wonderful as well. You need a really good group together to be able to do what you need to.”

The team processes beef, pork and lamb and slaughter one day a week. They focus on cutting the other four days.

Maarhuis takes pride in contributing to food security in her area and delivering high quality and safe food.

“Ultimately, I believe in food security and that’s one of the reasons I enjoy doing this,” she says.

For those interested in getting involved in meat processing, Maarhuis recommends that people have a passion for the sector, and familiarize themselves with the rules and regulations around providing food products to families in the province.

She also suggests that people contact their local butcher shops to learn the art and skills of the trade and figure out if meat processing is a right career fit. Whatever the sector’s rewards, it’s not for the faint of heart.

“It’s awesome to see women in this industry and how fabulous they are doing. I think it would be super cool if there was a way to encourage more women to get in this industry and I think that women are much more capable than they think they are,” Maarhuis says.

Attention to detail

Bonnie Windsor, former assistant plant manager at Johnston’s Packers in Chilliwack and now president of BC Meats (formally known as the BC Association of Abattoirs), echoes this sentiment.

To women interested in entering the sector, she says, “You can do it!”

The work can be hard and heavy, Windsor admits, but it offers opportunities for women to showcase their attention to detail, creativity and work ethic.

Windsor began her career in the meat sector at an Alberta plant around 1983.

“This is a man’s industry; it always has been and it’s very difficult to break in,” says Windsor, who considers herself a ground-breaker. “I wasn’t welcome for anything except grabbing the guys’ coffee, cleaning the lunchroom and scrubbing the bathrooms and maybe wrapping some meat. I wanted to work on the kill floor because I was an experienced butcher.”

Windsor’s first opportunity to show her skills came on a day the plant was short-handed and they asked her to work as a last resort.

“All the guys had bets on me for how long I’d last and a year later I was their supervisor,” Windsor says. She worked in the slaughterhouse for 12 years.

While inclusion and acceptance has come a long way, she says more can be done to make jobs in the sector more accessible for women.

“We are getting more and more women in the industry; I think that more and more men … are starting to see the value,” she says.