This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

At the annual Canadian Restaurant and Bar Show, butcher Peter Baarda of Burlington's J&G Quality Meats demonstrates how to prepare an eyecatching rib roast to the small crowd gathered in front of his booth.

He peels off the translucent layer of membrane, pointing out it prevents marinades from penetrating the meat and cooking properly. Then he explains how sawing back and forth into the meat creates unattractive ridges and demonstrates the beauty of one smooth slice.

To finish, he ties the rib roast with black-and-white Henry Willing butcher's twine, which holds the roast together in the oven and adds a decorative element that looks good in the meat counter display case and, of course, on Instagram.

While other booths promote the latest industrial kitchen equipment, recyclable takeout containers and — at one stall — an alcohol slushie machine, Baarda is encouraging people to consider butchery as a career.

In spite of the current popularity of plant-based foods, Canadians are still eating meat, and butcher shops are struggling with staffing to keep up with the demand.

"As far as the shop goes, we could do more if we had another person," said Baarda, who took over his nearly 60-year-old butcher shop with his wife Keri just over three years ago.

Nationwide, meat organizations have launched a campaign to make butchery a nationally recognized trade. For his part, Baarda will bring a Canadian team to an upcoming international butchery competition he hopes will put Canada's butchers in the world spotlight.

Next September, Baarda and seven other butchers from across Canada will be the first Canadian team to compete in theWorld Butchers' Challenge in Sacramento, California. Teams will have 3 hours and 15 minutes to turn a side of beef, a side of pork, a whole lamb and five chickens into a display that will be judged by an international panel of meat experts.

"There aren't a lot of young butchers out there," says Baarda, who has been a professional butcher for 29 years. "This is a way to create awareness that being a butcher can be as good as doing plumbing or electrical. When I was in high school, I was told not to do things with my hands and to focus on computers. Now we all realize people in trades are making the money."

Franco Naccarato, the executive director of Meat and Poultry Ontario, which represents Ontario meat retailers, wholesalers and processors, who is also the team Canada manager and fundraiser, estimates there is a shortage of 2,400 butchers in Ontario. Staffing, while always a challenge, is getting worse. Five years ago, the organization surveyed its members and 70 per cent of butcher shops reported a labour shortage. Last year, more than 90 per cent of its members said they were short on workers.

The association started its own province-wide butchery competition six years ago in an attempt to drum up buzz for the profession.

"The sector faces challenges with employment in that there's not a lot of post-secondary training despite it being one of the oldest trades," says Naccarato. "If you don't see the post-secondary training, you assume there's no career in it. Or you only see butchery as an entry-level position but don't see the higher-paying positions like the master butcher and sausage makers."

Audience members watch Peter Baarda's butchery demo. | Nick Kozak/For the Toronto Star

Peter Sanagan, owner of Sanagan's Meat Locker in Kensington Market, agrees that labour shortages are the biggest problem facing butcher shops. To make up for the lack of domestic skilled workers, Sanagan has sponsored workers from the Philippines. "It's a challenge for them to come work in a new country, but the training they're getting back in the Philippines exceeds the training people can get here," he says. "There are a handful of schools in Canada that offer butchery programs, but it's not enough. A lot of the older butchers are retiring and there's no one to replace them."

Sanagan has suggested the field to high school graduates who never considered going into butchery. "It's a decently paid skill so in a lot of cases, people work at the same place for a long time. Ten years since opening, I realized it's important for us to foster the talent, I want people to think of it as a career," he says, adding that starting wages at his shop range from $18 to $20 an hour (the minimum wage in Ontario is $14). He's sending one of his butchers to a three-month meat processing program at Olds College in Olds, Alta., to learn more about farming and slaughtering.

A common path for an aspiring butcher is to simply ask the owner of a butcher shop for an apprenticeship. The other is to enrol in meat-cutting programs at schools such as the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in Calgary and Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops.

At Fanshawe College's London, Ont., campus, a dozen students just finished the classroom part of a provincially funded pre-apprentice butchery program and are now doing a paid work-term at local butcher shops. The college is accepting applications for 20 spots at a new butchery certification program launching in September. During the 30 weeks, students will learn to butcher cow, pig, lamb, poultry and game such as bison, elk, rabbit, squab and partridge; take meat cooking classes and learn about food, health and equipment safety. They will also take writing and communication classes.

"The program at Fanshawe is a direct response to the labour shortage," says butchery program director Troy Spicer. "I was a chef and meat cutter and I was working a crazy number of hours because there was no one to hire. This program is me trying to change that."

On the national level organizations such as Meat & Poultry Ontario, Food Processing Skills Canada and the Canadian Professional Meat Cutters Association are trying to establish a nationwide accredited butchery program that would recognize butcher skills across Canada. The Interprovincial Standards Real Seal Program, or Red Seal as its more commonly referred to, is a distinction given to trades in Canada that have a nationwide set of standards. Currently, just over 50 trades have Red Seal status including plumbing, cooking and hairstyling. Naccarato is confident it will happen in the near future.

Despite the rise in plant-based options, the meat industry doesn't consider it a factor in the labour shortage.

"(Plant-based eating) gets a lot of media attention, but the reality is that there's really no effect on the industry," says Spicer. "We're growing, actually, and labour is the biggest barrier, not people eating vegetables."

Baarda adds that while young people may be eating less meat on a regular basis, they'd rather spend a bit more at a small-scale, independently owned butcher shop where they can ask the staff about where the meat came from and how it was raised.

Statistics Canada shows that in 1980, the average Canadian ate 38.8 kg and 32.2 kg of beef and pork, respectively. In 2018 the numbers dropped to 25.4 kg and 21.7 kg. However, people are eating more chicken with the average person's consumption going from 16.9 kg to 34.6 kg over that same period. Interestingly, from 2016 to 2018 when plant-based eating became increasingly mainstream in Canada, chicken consumption per person rose by 2 kg per person. The amount of beef and pork eaten remained steady. Until those numbers start dropping drastically, butcher shops need people behind the counter and the industry believes a nation-wide standard would help boost staffing.

"Our belief is that it would help with retention and professionalize the industry," says Spicer. "People wouldn't think it's just a job, but a career with a designation that could be recognized anywhere."

Baarda first got into butchery as a part-time job when he was 17. He says it's a rewarding career, even if it's not the most glamourous.

"Protein is often the centrepiece of the table whether it's a turkey or a prime rib roast," says Baarda as he preps for a top sirloin demo later that afternoon. "Last year, we sold 1,200 turkeys, so we were the centrepiece of 1,200 meals. To be part of that is an amazing feeling."

Karon Liu is the Star's food writer and is based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @karonliu

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com