P i s t a c h i o

When a butcher buys the farm, it’s a good thing. When creative quality-driven retail meets creative, quality-driven wholesale, the customer wins twice: at home and out to dinner.

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MEAT ON THE MARQUEE

Stephen Alexander gives his uptown fans what they’ve been waiting for

Published in Business Edge, July 20, 2006

“Butchery is in my blood,” says Stephen Alexander, owner of Cumbrae’s Naturally Raised Meats in Toronto. He opened his high-end shop nearly 12 years ago, and that’s how long he waited before opening his second Toronto location, which he did uptown in May.

“I could afford to open five new locations five years ago,” Alexander says, without a hint of conceit. Business has simply been very good. Sales have grown 15 to 20 percent each year since he opened. And his clientele was growing fiercely loyal, travelling downtown to his sole location, despite gridlock and limited parking.

Another retailer might have thought that more locations was the way to go. Serve their clientele with easier access and attract new customers from the area less inclined to trek to the inner city. This demographic loves his meat and can pay his prices.

Alex Farm took another route. This high-quality Toronto cheese store started out as a Mom and Pop market stall in 1978. Today, they have nine well-placed shops throughout the city and do business online. Even though they have a 13-year jump on him, Alexander won’t travel down this road.

Word of mouth is key, and foremost in his mind is maintaining quality. “In this business, you’re only as good as your last steak,” he says, confessing, “I live in fear that someone will taste one of my products at a dinner party and say, ‘What’s the big deal?’”

Alexander takes nothing for granted and fixed his attention on the quality of his supply chain, “which all started with Scotty,” he says, whose real name is Alistair Robinson, the original owner of Cumbrae Farm, outside Toronto.

Alexander bought Robinson out in 1995, installing long-time colleague Nathan Pond, “who runs the farm like it’s his own.” Robinson stayed on to offer advice when needed and to work with Pond to develop the wholesale part of the business. Together they won over most of Niagara wine country’s fine-dining chefs. In 2001, Alexander made the farm officially his.

Alexander may have butchery in his blood, but it all started on the farm.

From the age of 11, at his father’s side, he learned how to grade cattle. He also learned the lessons of his father’s business model. Alexander Senior apprenticed as a butcher under his father and first set up shop selling meat in volume because his prices were low. Business was brisk, but it dropped abruptly when a large chain opened up across the street. Forced to sell his business the next year, he vowed never to do business on price again. He went upmarket,where chains couldn’t compete and quickly prospered.

This approach led Alexander Junior to concentrate on strengthening his supply chain and developing the brand of “peerless” meats. He also assembled a stable of local micro-producers who raised their livestock naturally and forged exclusivity contracts promising to buy their entire annual production.
Alexander is also a shrewd purveyor of speciality products like fois gras. He buys from all over. “If it’s good and they ship, we want it,” he says.

Also on Alexander’s radar is West Coast cheese-maker David Wood who, coincidentally was a Toronto gourmet retailer before moving to Salt Spring Island 16 years ago. Wood was far ahead of his time by opening his large upmarket food shop long before anyone had ever heard of Williams Sonoma. There was considerable interest, but not enough shoppers. In October Wood became licensed to sell outside the province, but he has no interest in doing retail again. “It takes a special set of skills,” he says. “If I were to open a cheese shop in Vancouver, I don’t think I could do a better job of retailing than [organic grocery chain] Whole Foods,” which stocks his cheese.
For Alexander, getting Toronto chefs excited about the quality of his meat was very important. “If you make them happy, your customers will be happy,” he says. Some use the word “artful” when describing the marbling of his meat. They honour the Cumbrae brand by giving it marquee status on their menus.

In Calgary, chef-restaurateur Paul Rogalski says he would love to follow Alexander’s example to buy a farm’s annual production as a way to safeguard the quality of supply, “but we’re too small.” The co-owner of Rouge Restaurant grows much of his own produce but meat is another story. “We could certainly share that cost with another restaurant or two,” he adds.

Just 68 km south of Calgary is the A7 Ranch, an established brand in Alberta’s cattle country. It’s first owner was one of the first four ranchers to found the Alberta cattle industry and start the Calgary Stampede. Like Alexander, today’s owner John Cross is a third generation practitioner of the family business, but unlike Alexander, Cross is taking a path completely different from his father. Cross Senior, like most of his peers, used pesticides freely and heavily.

Cross is known to call himself a grass farmer whose by-product is beef. He’s found a way to care for the land by rotating his grazing herds in a way that cultivates an indigenous grass known as rough fescue, considered to be exceptional cattle feed. “Because he doesn’t have a mortgage since the farm is long-paid for,” says ranch manager John Burk, “he doesn’t have as much pressure to generate revenue.” Cross has become a caretaker of the land on his sprawling ranch, and because of his reputation, buyers come to him for auctioning. The industry norm is for farmers to bear the cost of transporting their cattle to auction and then to slaughter.

Since he grows solely to feed his stock, rejuvenating his land by cultivating the indigenous grasses, Cross saves on the fuel and mechanical costs of harvesting, bailing and distributing hay.

Like Cross, Alexander’s business decisions have positive vertical repercussions. Cross sets a notable example by producing just what he needs while bringing his vast acreage back to life for the next generation’s producers. Alexander made it possible for some lucky micro-farmers to thrive without competing the big guys, even though they could easily beat them on quality.

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