Located near Balzac, AB, just north of Calgary, the plant opens with the creation of about 175 new jobs, with total employment targeted at 375 jobs once processing ramps up to a planned 750 head per day.
The opening of Harmony Beef marks a new era in beef processing. The innovative and environmentally progressive processing facility has undergone a complete redesign and buildout on the former Rancher’s Beef site, a producer-owned plant built more than a decade earlier and which operated for just 14 months before being shuttered. Today, the Harmony Beef facility is a demonstration of leading edge innovative approaches to harvest, fabrication, environmental leadership, food safety, animal welfare and sustainability.
“Good things take time and that is certainly the case with Harmony Beef”
Harmony Beef opened with the most advanced, and likely most unique, water system in the industry, enabling the plant, once at peak processing capacity, to use approximately one million fewer gallons of fresh water per week than a facility of similar processing capacity, said Rich Vesta, who owns and operates Harmony Beef with his sons Christopher and Jeremy.
The system, at the leading edge of water reuse purification technologies in North America, was developed in Alberta. It will likely lead to a new era of industrial water reuse in the province, said Vesta, an industry veteran with a proven track record of leading operational and financial turnarounds at some of the largest and best known U.S. beef production facilities.
Good things take time and that is certainly the case with Harmony Beef. With the facility now open, Vesta said the focus will be on slowly building capacity to stay true to his family’s unwavering commitment to excellence as they seek to set new standards for beef processing in North America.
Over time Harmony Beef intends to showcase the unmatched quality of Alberta beef cattle as it opens new markets, especially in Europe and Asia, Vesta said. Once certified, it will be the only plant of its size in Canada certified for distribution to the European Union.
Source: Meatbusiness