How firm tapped into rich meat business

 

It is a hive of activity inside the Well Hung Butchery Ltd (WHB) located in Timau, along Nanyuki-Isiolo road. Workers are busy making various beef products. Some are packaging beef burgers, others processing sausages and others trimming beef steaks on a long table.

Jack Dyer, the Managing Director, of WHB paces up and down, helping some of the employees as he monitors the processing going inside the butchery.

The butchery which is part of the family business owned by (Jack Dyer’s father) was started in 2016. So why did they decide to venture into the meat business?

“We saw the demand and decided to jump into this business. High-quality beef and its byproducts are our driving force,” Jack tells The Smart Harvest and Technology during a visit to their butchery.

When they started, Jack says they wanted to bridge the gap between high-quality beef from the farm level and equally high-quality meat that lands on the table for consumption.

“At that time, we were raising and producing quality meat from the cattle but what ended on the table was of poor quality. There was a disconnect somewhere,” he notes.

Did research

Before going big with the new idea, they did research on the best way of chilling the meat and the entire process for high-quality beef and byproducts.

For quality beef products, Jack says it all starts from the farm, then at slaughter which should be a humane slaughter.

“While killing the animal, if humane practices are not followed properly, the quality of meat becomes poor,” Jack warns.

Since they are dealing with food products, he affirms that hygiene is key. So, at the entrance of the WHB, employees should be clean.

To achieve that, first, they sanitise, put on functioning uniforms before they start any operations inside the butchery. The visitors too must sanitise and maintain high standards of hygiene.

For quality and premium meat, first, their cattle for slaughter are transported in a human manner.

Once at the slaughterhouse,  the animals are left to rest for at least 48 hours, giving them enough time to calm down and relax. Jack explains they do this to retain the quality of meat and throughout their meat products.

Professional meat handling

One animal is slaughtered at a time, and between each, the room is cleaned thoroughly so that there is no blood or traces of cattle being slaughtered before the next animals come in. This way, there is no fear or adrenalin from another animal transferred to another.

The cattle are slaughtered in a cage, then lifted to bleed while hanging. He explains once blood is out, the carcass is brought down to the floor and the hide, head, and hooves are removed.

Jack says it is then cleaned thoroughly and taken for inspection at the veterinary department. After inspection, the meat is taken to a small room where the temperature ranges between 8-10 degrees.

“Here, the meat is stored for 12-24 hours allowing it to chill slowly to preserve the tenderness. It is then taken and stored in another room below two degrees,” he explains.

He adds that with the constant sanitisation and temperature below two degrees during handling, they can store the meat comfortably for 100-140 days and it remains fresh.

The meat is also taken through aging. Aging, he says is done for the meat to be tender, softer, and tastier and takes 21 days.

All the carcasses are tagged and put on slaughter dates and when processing started.

They slaughter 20 cattle in a week.

Processing

After all that, the meat is then processed and value-added into different products. WHB processes sausages, pastrami, pre-smoked beef ribs, burgers, and bacon.

“Here, everything we do is through orders. We have diverse groups of customers from schools, restaurants, hotels, individuals and dining establishments, and online buyers. Orders come weekly,” says Jack.

Inside the WHB, there are various machines for making sausages and other final products, weighing, sealing, labelling, and packaging.

For quality meat, cattle are fed natural grass. At the butchery, meat is not supposed to stay on the table for more than 40 minutes.

“If it does, while working on it, you take it back in the cold room and wait for another 20 minutes. After doing that, the table has to be thoroughly cleaned because the meat you had taken back may have started breeding bacteria that leads to rotting,” he says.

He adds a worker has to change gloves and chopping board before bringing another fresh meat for processing.

Michael, the elder Dyer also gives fresh perspectives on the meat business.

Michael reveals that they have been keeping cattle for many years as part of a family business. However, along the way, they resolved to invest in their own butchery to fill a market need.

He says they wanted to process meat in a way that upholds animal welfare from the farm to slaughter. Although they slaughter their own cattle, Michael says they also buy from the communities and other ranches.

“Although we want cattle of a high standard, sometimes it is a challenge when you buy from the community because they rarely uphold animal welfare issues,” Michael points out.

The main challenges they face are prolonged drought that results in a lack of grass for the cattle, Foot and mouth disease which leads to economic losses. Foot and mouth disease is a severe, highly contagious viral disease of livestock that has a significant economic impact.

Market trends

On the markets, he explains how they have managed to hack it.

“Some of the restaurants we were supplying wanted us to make burger meat. We then bought a machine for that and started taking orders. With time, more orders started to trickle in. We have since built a customer base as people learn what we produce.”

The younger Dyer says they have not met any marketing challenge because they are aggressive on this front and their products are quality. They target everyone including the Islamic community who prefer pastrami (highly seasoned smoked beef prepared especially from shoulder cuts).

For those who want a piece of the pie, Michael says the market is huge. 

“There is high demand for meat in Kenya and when you offer quality, you can never go wrong,” he explains.

On the international market, he says “We are currently selling our products locally and the market is good. We cannot even satisfy it. We are not exporting any meats because we are barely able to meet local demand. But I do know there is a market in the Middle East.”    BY THE STANDARD MEDIA