Western Feedlots Ltd

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Description

Western Feedlots is the result of a vision shared by a group of ranchers and farmers back in the late 1950’s. They were looking for a better way to market their farm and ranch production, and were not satisfied shipping their calves and feed grains to eastern Canada for finishing. In 1958 they founded Western Feedlots Ltd. as a producer’s answer to the problem of needing to develop better markets for their production. Western’s operations today are vastly more diverse than when the company was started. In addition to being Canada’s largest cattle feeder, Western owns cattle in other feedlots as well, and has other complimentary operations such as a feed grains trading division, a commercial feedlot software development (paraDIAM), cattle & feed finance facilities, commodities trading, extensive production research and consulting, crop farming, and other initiatives. Our management systems are designed not only to enhance the performance and management of cattle at the feedlots, but also to protect our environment, to provide a progressive and safe workplace for our employees, and to produce safe food for our customers.

By the 1950s, finishing cattle on the range had become both impractical and uneconomic. Ranchers were sending calves east to the growing feedlot industry there, and at the same time, prairie farmers were shipping grain east to provide that same industry with feed for those western calves. A small group of Alberta business men saw both the problem and a potential solution – the creation of a custom cattle feeding industry in the west. One of them, Eion Chisholm, already had some experience of small-scale feeding and had toured feedlot operations in the USA, and it was largely his vision of emulating these feedlots in southern Alberta that led to the creation of Western Feedlots Ltd’s business model – to provide compact custom feeding facilities for large numbers of cattle.

Managing our workplace to ensure that it is a safe site for our employees, managing our practices so that animal welfare is maintained, managing our operations so that negative environmental impact is mitigated , managing our business deals so that integrity and respect are evident all so that our communities can respect us for the high standards we keep, and our shareholders can be confident that our company operates with high standards.

The 1990s saw yet more change, much of it due to the company’s move away from the “old cowboy way” to a more structured, corporate model. The board members evolved to become corporation leaders, and the company was departmentalized. New lines of business were added – commodity trading, customer finance, software development and sales, off-site cattle management, contract research, and more. In 1993, an Environmental Impact Management Strategy was put in place. In 1994, the company introduced a performance grid (originally called “Carcass Quality Based Marketing”) for paying producers on quality as well as weight for their finished cattle. The performance data was passed on to the producers, enabling them to strategise their herd management. Western was able to use aggregated data to improve its own herd and to form the foundation for what has become a sophisticated science-based approach to feedlot management.

You will experience working for an industry leading agri-business where we provide you with training and learning while you travel and explore not only Alberta but different areas of Canada.

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