UNITED KINGDOM.
COWS TO PET FOOD.
Midland meat Packers, formerly Bakers of Ruby, were the largest players in English cow slaughtering for over 40years.
Fred Baker, had the abattoir in Rugby cattle market, in the midlands of England and specialized in manufacturing cows, to supply Birdseye and Findus Foods at the start of the beef burger revolution in the sixties.
His four sons, went into the business and built a new state-of-the-art-plant at Crick, outside Rugby, trading as Midland Meat Packers, they went on to control the English cow trade, until BSE, stopped them in their tracks in 1996.
The cow trade was then finished in Great Britain, as all cows had to be incinerated in the government cow cull scheme.
The Baker Boys Roger, John, Edwin and Graham, went into the pet food business at the closure of their beef plant in 1996.
The company now employs 185 people and turns over US$80 million a year.
Graham Baker, the youngest brother has since bought out his siblings and is planning to build a new factory, which can increase production by 150%.
Graham said in a recent interview with the English Times newspaper, " Pet food was originally a sideline but it became much more important after the BSE crisis, that destroyed the beef business my father had built up, but we still had the facilities so went into canning pet food".
Graham went on to say "what we make is high quality and the new plant will help us maintain our standards".
The Baker brothers were not the only casualties of the BSE epidemic, all the cow plants had to move into other meats or close the doors.
