Farm Credit Canada

With more than 20 years in the food production business, Arnold Drung keeps an eye out for efficiency. As President of Conestoga Meat Packers, he’s constantly looking for the best return on investment.

“The key to efficiency is getting maximum yield from our inputs. Then you need to sell to the best customer that you can find, the one who’ll give you the best price for the commodity,” Arnold explains. “The export market is vital. We sell product to whatever part of the world that provides the best returns.”

If you’re thinking about what consumers want today, you’re already behind. That’s one of the lessons Lou Albanese has learned in more than 30 years running TMF Foods Inc. (formerly The Meat Factory). For Lou, it’s all about planning ahead.

“We look down the road at where the industry is trending,” he explains. “Then we try to be there before everyone else.” To get ahead of the curve, Lou had to completely change his business. He gave up meat cutting to focus on meat processing for the food service industry, and his own brand of fully cooked entrées.

How much control do you want over your business? For Dan Wiebe, the answer is simple: more. In addition to being the founder of his B.C. poultry company, he’s also his own supplier, middle man and processor.

“I always felt that whoever controls the processing sector controls the industry,” Dan explains. “And I decided with my family that we wanted to be in control of our own destiny.”

When you're in business, you can find opportunity in the most peculiar places. Shaun Crew found it 2,000 kilometers from home, over coffee.

It was 1998. Shaun was the district vice-president of an international freight forwarder and was in Vancouver overseeing a shipment of transformers from Manitoba to India.