By Terry Meagher

ASHTON — Most people know Rick Hobbs ran purebred and commercial beef sales every year and a machinery auction. Most know he owns Hobbs Livestock Pavilion.

But his main source of income over the last few years is his beef operation, raising livestock from the cradle to slaughterhouse. He has 160 beef cows and sells 100-head annually through his "cut and wrap" trade. But that’s been getting tougher. People who used to buy a whole beef, started to buy sides, then quarters. "Now many of them are down to pieces," he says.

Necessity has turned him into one of the new beef entrepreneurs. More than three years ago, he qualified for a feasibility study funded by the provincial government and administered by the Ontario Cattlemen’s Association . The program cost $18,000, about $5,000 of it his.

"At the time, I thought the feasibility study was a waste of money," he says. But no more.

He knew that with today’s low prices there was not enough money to pay everyone in the beef chain. But he was surprised when Mallot Creek Strategies Inc., the company doing the study, returned its analysis on the bill of sale he sent them.

According to the company, a carcass of 1,400 pounds returned or paid out about $2,800. He received $1 per pound for the animal at the sale barn, but even with slaughtering costs estimated at about $400, he would have made $1,200 more marketing his own cattle than marketing down the laneway.

He received $1,400 for the steer on the bill he sent to the company, and after expense he still had a little profit. But before Christmas 2009, he sold his steers and heifers between 69 cents and 75 cents. He lost money.

Hobbs’s goal is to market everything through the new store and deli he is building on his Dwyer Hill Road property, in rural Ottawa. Mallot did a traffic study and found that 17,000 vehicles per day passed within two miles of his future store, which will have four tables, enough to seat 16 people. The building now under construction is 40ft. by 50 ft. Basing its conclusion on historical evidence, Mallot Creek Strategies told him the outlet could sell 10-head a week, about five times the volume of his "cut and wrap" business.

"I would be happy with half that much," he said.

A number of people were turned down for the study, mainly because they didn’t have supply. He’s looked after that. "I’ve signed contracts with four other people," he said.

He’s also planned for the slow days. The store will also have a bakery, which will give him the opportunity to turn aging, surplus meat into delectable meat pies. The marketing gurus always say a farmgate bakery boosts sales significantly.

But there’s been a downside. He’s been three years working through the city of Ottawa bureaucracy. The problem is the new expansion is neither fish nor foul. It’s not a restaurant, bakery or beef operation. It’s all three and that creates grey areas.

He hopes to be in business this spring but concedes that might be optimistic, though he’s counting on being open for the barbecue season.

He doesn’t think life will be easy; he’ll be going back to a seven-day schedule, something a former dairy farmer can adjust to.

His wife Christine will take charge of the bakery and the children will be enlisted part-time. "I expect we’ll have to hire people," he says. He owns 900 acres and rents another 500 acres altogether, and his feeding program is almost self-sufficient in corn silage and high moisture corn. He feeds some barley through the summer.