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(La Malbaie) “Do you sell skins? », exclaims the customer, whose gaze stops on the pieces of brown leather placed next to the freezer full of chops, tabs and other pieces of veal.
“Calf leather is the best,” because it is thinner, enthusiastically responds breeder Jean-Robert Audet, who sells his products directly from the farm.
His small butcher’s shop, located opposite the red stable where he fattens a dozen calves each year, is a veritable circular economy laboratory: in addition to the meat from his animals, there are candles and soaps made with their tallow, bone powder for vegetable gardens, collagen supplements, chewable “treats” for dogs… and leather.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESS
The stable in which Jean-Robert Audet fattens a dozen calves each year
Owner of a slaughterhouse for 20 years, Jean-Robert Audet distributed Charlevoix veal throughout Quebec until 2014; a few years later, he launched into breeding on a smaller scale, and sought to better valorize the carcasses of his animals, of the Belgian Blue breed.
It was during his research that he discovered that only 41% of a bovine animal is intended for human food, according to the French inter-professional livestock and meat association, the rest being generally sent to rendering, to make animal meal, fertilizers or fats.
“There, I fell to the ground,” remembers the inexhaustible Charlevoisian, proud to tell his story to customers who pass through the door of his business.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESS
Jean-Robert Audet, breeder in the Charlevoix region
The animals that give us their lives, we throw away 59% of them. Is this honoring the animal?
Jean-Robert Audet, breeder in the Charlevoix region
It was by seeking to recover more parts of his animals that Jean-Robert Audet, a trained agronomist, thought of tanning the hide, which represents some 6% of a bovine.
But the artisanal tanneries he contacted, which mainly make fur, were not interested, and the commercial tannery Des Ruisseaux, in Kamouraska, does mineral tanning, while he wants vegetable tanning.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESS
Discussion between Jean-François Hallé, biologist at Écofaune boréale, in Lac-Saint-Jean, and breeder Jean-Robert Audet
It therefore ended up at the Écofaune boréale College Center for Technology Transfer (CCTT), in Lac-Saint-Jean.
“Crimes of beautiful products”
“It’s more flexible!” », exclaimed Jean-Robert Audet, euphoric, when he went to Écofaune boréale to collect a second batch of skins from his calves, in November. “There’s enough to make crimes out of beautiful products with that. »
“We thinned them before tanning them,” biologist Jean-François Hallé explained to him.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESS
Calfskin from Jean-Robert Audet’s farm produced in partnership with Écofaune boréale
Écofaune boréale agreed to participate in Jean-Robert Audet’s project because its objective of promoting the animal as much as possible is “highly symbolic,” says the director of the establishment, Louis Gagné.
The circular economy is fundamental. Resources are becoming scarce, so let’s stop throwing them in the trash.
Louis Gagné, director of the Boreal Ecofaune College Center for Technology Transfer
A new kind of slaughterhouse
Jean-Robert Audet dreams of a new slaughterhouse model, focused on the circular economy, which he has called CVA, for “animal recovery center”.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESS
Calves from Jean-Robert Audet’s farm
A tannery, a soap factory and a butcher’s shop would complete the slaughtering activities, “either on the same site, or not far away in the region”, he explains, adding that he plans to soon earn more income from the sale of the co-products of his calves than from the sale of their meat.
“This is what we need to do, for ecology, for self-sufficiency, and for profitability,” he says, emphasizing that small slaughterhouses alone are not profitable in Quebec.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESS
“The future is backwards”, we can read in the window of Jean-Robert Audet’s butcher’s shop
This approach would put the animal “at the center of our lives, [comme] in the time of our grandparents”, he says, hence the slogan written in the window of his butcher’s shop, in big red letters: “The future is backwards”.
But at 70, without succession, Jean-Robert Audet fears not being able to accomplish his dream himself.
“I’m still young in my head, but there is no donor who will follow me,” he says, without getting sad.
“I would rather see a cooperative of workers or a group of producers” setting up such a CVA, he imagines. “There could be some in other regions. »
Slaughterhouses stuck with skins
PHOTO JEAN-THOMAS LEVEILLÉ, THE PRESS
Steeve Cliche, owner of Abattoir Cliche, in the Chaudière-Appalaches region
“Jean-Robert wanted his skins back, I told him “with pleasure”; I will no longer need to pay to get rid of it,” says Steeve Cliche, owner of Abattoir Cliche. When he opened his business, about fifteen years ago, a salvager bought animal skins from him for between $25 and $40 to resell them, which represented a weekly income of $1,500, but today he has to pay the Sanimax rendering company to take them back, which costs him around $500 per week. Slaughterhouses that are not served by Sanimax are authorized to send the skins to landfill, as provided by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of Quebec (MAPAQ), which costs them much less, deplores Steeve Cliche. Only certain large slaughterhouses, equipped to condition the hides, keep them in order to resell them for tanning, mainly in China and Italy.