Few things say grand re-opening better than racks of delicious smoked ribs.
But the Saturday, May 16th Rib Fest celebration of Miedema’s Meat Market Ltd.’s major expansion is also a statement of intergenerational family commitment to its home community of Embro.
“I’ve seen too many small towns that just shrivel up,” said owner-operator Brent Miedema, a man with energy and enthusiasm as large and infectious as his smile. “I’ve been here my whole life, and we want to avoid that.”
Brent’s father Leo established Miedema Meats in 1982, taking over a butcher shop which had served the community since the early 1900s. Leo was following in his father Luit’s footsteps, a Jarvis-based foundation whose legacy is currently represented by five active meat-related operations in southwestern Ontario.
“It’s generational,” said Brent.
Full disclosure, while the meat business was in his blood, it was not in Brent’s original career plans. There was ‘no way’ he was going to be a butcher smiled Miedema, who completed his bachelor of education with the intention of becoming a high school English teacher. However, with he and wife Melissa starting their family and a surplus of education graduates projecting a seven-year path toward full-time employment, Brent found his way back ‘home’ to what he quickly realized was a passion he’d never really left.
“The work was always here.”
In Brent’s father’s time, there were 14 small, independent butcher shops within a 20-minute drive of Embro says Brent, whereby today, one has to drive 20 minutes to find another. Part of that reality lies in a general tendency towards expansion and consolidation, but a significant part also lay in governmental regulations challenging small operations.
That changed ‘180 degrees’ in COVID says Miedema, a period during which large operations were at times, challenged by outbreaks, while smaller processors kept rolling along.
“People have to eat,” he said, of an emerging appreciation for smaller, independent operators. Comparatively overnight, what had been a struggle from 1995 through 2020 turned into an environment welcoming both new business and expansion of existing operations.
“They work with you,” said Miedema, who also credited the positive support he received from the Township of Zorra, represented personally by Mayor Marcus Ryan, on hand the day Brent decided to ‘pull the trigger’ on expansion.
“He was so excited,” Miedema recalled. “For me, that was just a helpful push.”
To say the construction process was without challenge would be inaccurate. But it was also productive and satisfying, Brent’s happy Melissa and his six children, aged 9-16, could be involved more meaningfully than he was during his father’s original 1984 expansion.
“It’s pretty special to me the kids have been a part of it,” said Miedema. “I’ve pulled a few hairs out this year,” he added with a laugh. “But that goes with it – it’s been great.”The result still holds true to Miedema’s Meat Market core competencies, a full-service abattoir with custom butchering and retail outlet offering fresh, cured, smoked and frozen cuts of beef, pork and chicken. But it does so with three times the square footage, represented in a larger storefront and expanded slaughter, processing and storage capacity in a new cooler. During COVID says Miedema, it could take up to a year and a half to book an animal for processing.
“With the extra space, we’re open for business,” he continued, people shocked to discover ‘next week’ rather than ‘next year’ is now a possibility. “They are just blown away.”
Any significant expansion requires a leap of faith. For Brent, it is one anchored in decades of experience and tradition. A firm believer in the ‘gift’ that is proximity to extended family, he is thrilled his 70-year-old father still enjoys working two and a half days a week, the additional benefit being it’s alongside his elder grandchildren.
“They get to spend time with each other.”
Beyond short-term opportunity, expansion also represents future possibility, should their children choose that path, once having learned from and worked for someone else.
“I think that’s important.”
It is also however, not just about the Miedema family, but a supportive position in a community Brent has called home his entire life. Employing 20, ‘all local’, he is pleased to supply maple sausage and hot dogs for local firefighter barbecues and wings for wing night at the legion, Miedema also offering ingredients for Scottish-inspired haggis.
“It’s a modified haggis,” he clarified, willing to take its creators’ word that it’s delicious. “I’m like ‘I’m good,’” he laughed, his own Dutch roots perhaps showing.
Brent will also have a commercial eight-pig capacity smoker fired up for the grand-reopening, a shared celebration of family expansion within Embro he muses may have the potential to become an annual event.
“We’re proud to be a part of the community and provide an essential service in this great agricultural area,” Brent concluded. “And looking forward to growing along with our community.”
Join Brent and the Miedema family May 16th from 11pm-3pm at the Miedema Meat Market 129 Huron St., Embro for the Grand (re)Opening Open House & Ribfest