by Andrew Campbell
Last year, we took you on a tour of a pig farm, which is similar to how a lot of pig farms in Canada look. But it isn’t the only way. For Fred and his family, providing pork to niche markets has been a priority and a passion for 40 years. That market is in heritage breeds and wildboar pork for restaurants and speciality butcher shops in some of Ontario’s largest cities. And the fact he raises pigs that would be considered the regular ones too, means he’s the perfect person to visit with to discuss just what the differences are between ‘commodity’ pork and ‘speciality’ pork.
Today we are in Perth County, Ontario with Fred who has operated Perth Pork since 1979. Thanks for having me, Fred. Your farm is a little bit different from the last pork farmer we visited as you have several unique breeds of pigs. What kind of pigs do you have around the farm?
We have Wildboar, Berkshire pigs, Tamworth, as well as regular commodity pigs, and some cross breeds. For example, we cross our Tamworth pigs with wildboar and market them as Iron Age pigs. We also cross our Berkshire pigs with wildboar and we call them our Stone Age pigs. They are marketed to our chef customers because they always are looking for something unique and different for their menus.
Berkshire and Tamworth are known as heritage breeds. What’s the difference between the heritage breed and the common commodity pig?
The big difference between the heritage and regular commodity pigs is that the heritage breeds are fatty, very well marbled with thick back fat and a lot of flavour. A lot of consumers and supermarket stores want leaner cuts of pork from regular commodity pigs. But I like to tell people that marbling really makes a pork chop taste good. If you cook it correctly, low and slow, most of that fat is gone by the time it hits the plate anyway, but the flavour is still there. So, I say don’t be afraid of fat, just embrace it. Plus you don’t eat a lot of it, but whatever you eat, it has to taste good.
When did you start raising hogs? And when and why did you start raising heritage breeds and wildboar? Why not stick with a commodity pig?
We started raising pigs in 1979. I wanted to raise top quality pigs, so I literally closed the barn doors and utilized swine artificial insemination to introduce the qualities I was looking for. That took a few years. We had a good carcass, top quality.
At that point, the only thing that I could do to expand was to raise more, and that wasn’t the challenge that I was looking for. I wanted something different and what really caught my eye was the wildboar. At the time, there was an article in the Rural Voice magazine and I thought, wow, it looks to me as there is absolutely no marketing in place for wildboar meat. They’re only being raised for the hunt. So, I thought, that’d be something that I would like to get into and create a market for wildboar meat. That’s what got me rolling into the marketing end of things. When we had a market set up for wildboar we then added Berkshire and Tamworth breeds.
Where do you sell the meat?
Most of our meat is being sold in downtown Toronto in and around the CN tower. That’s where most of our customers are. We also sell some in Ottawa, some to Niagara Falls and Windsor.
What kind of places buy wildboar meat?
It’s a nice mix between restaurants and smaller butcher shops. I don’t market to the larger grocery stores but the small butcher shops in the big cities like in Toronto. The individually-owned butcher shops are the ones that sell our pork.
Tell us more about how you raise your pigs and wildboar?
It takes a lot longer to raise wildboar. A regular market hog takes about five months from birth to reach market weight. Our wildboar will take seven months. Every pig farmer out there will tell you that’s crazy because your cost of production is going to be so high that you’re not going to be able to make any money. But because we do our own marketing, we set our own price and we have a customer base that likes the quality of our pork. They’re willing to pay the price that we need for it and understand that it’s not the cheapest pork out there. That’s what makes our business profitable.
What do your pigs eat? Is it different from other pigs in Ontario or what’s the diet like?
The diet of most pigs includes corn and soybean meal. Our pigs do get some corn because you need the energy that you get from corn, but they also get much more of the other grains that are available. It’s a mix that I’ve put together with a feed specialist to make sure they develop a good carcass quality and that there is marbling in the loins and in the shoulders. Marbling is what gives flavour, and that’s what I’m going for.
This farm is unique in terms of feeding, obviously a unique marketing strategy and selling direct to restaurants. The other unique part of your farm is this viewing room where people can come for tours.
Anybody can come for a visit, but they have to call us or check our website first. There’s phone numbers on the website at Perth Pork Products. Give us a call, set it up, and then we’d be more than happy to give you a farm tour. Individual families are free but for bigger businesses we do charge a minimum charge. The reason that we’re doing this is because we want to educate people on what really happens on a pig farm in Ontario.
Why?
There is so much bad press out there that is just looking to find something that’s exciting, that will sell airtime, that will sell magazines, but they’re not telling you the truth. Everybody figures that whatever ends up online is the truth. Unfortunately it’s not, but if you come to our farm, you can ask your questions directly. We’ll walk around, it takes about an hour and a half, so it’s not a quick in and out. You get a good chance to ask your questions and to see the animals and then you’ll find out what really happens on Ontario pig farms.
What’s your experience been like hosting tours? You’ve been doing that for quite a while. What are some of the conversations like? What has it been like for you?
It’s been very exciting for us because we get to meet everybody out there. At the end of the tour I usually ask you what you do for a living since you now know what I do for a living. That’s when I find out what kind of people I’ve been touring for the last hour and a half. It’s fantastic. I appreciate when people are interested in food and trying to find out where our food is actually coming from.
I appreciate you taking the time to give us that tour as well. Thanks for the tour today.
Watch Fresh Air Farmer, Andrew Campbell’s full tour here
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