Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee, for giving us the opportunity to speak today.
My name is Dennis Comeau. I am the general manager of Top Shelf Feeds. We are the last agricultural feed manufacturer on Vancouver Island.
For a basic understanding of who we are and how we play a role in the agricultural community, we service approximately 135 commercial farms from Victoria to Port Alberni, along with the surrounding Gulf Islands. We also supply four of our retail stores, from Langford to Powell River. We have managed to get through many challenges since the start of the company in 1973. Our locally owned business has been through rail strikes, avian influenza, ferry strikes, rail blockades, and a shrinking market due to a lack of processing plants here on Vancouver Island.
Our challenge for the last seven years has been the cancellation of rail service direct to our facility. Top Shelf Feeds and our customers have been patiently waiting for decisions to be made on bringing back rail freight service to Vancouver Island.
We currently bring approximately 2,000 tonnes of raw grain per month to Top Shelf into a Nanaimo yard that is 45 minutes away from the mill. We transload that grain onto one of our trucks, and we bring it back to the mill in Duncan for processing. What used to be eight railcars in a five-day period at Top Shelf Feeds direct to Duncan is now limited to four or five railcars per week in the Nanaimo yard.
To put it in perspective, we manufacture about 140 tonnes of finished seeds per day. We only unload one railcar per day, and that takes up to nine hours. Railcars only hold between 80 and 90 tonnes, so we are short approximately 50 tonnes per day of raw grain. For this, we rely on trucks from the Lower Mainland, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Rising fuel costs and truck availability are driving the freight rates up significantly.
As far as commodity prices go, prices for commodities are at an all-time high and continue to challenge producers in the quota system. Chicken growers have a severe impact as feed prices tend to fluctuate monthly, and the payout price to the grower has adjusted annually. The dairy industry has the same challenges, compared to the input costs fluctuating monthly. Some farms, farm stands and local markets have also been directly impacted and are questioning whether to keep the farm operational.
On the pandemic, we did see an increase in sales in our retail sector at the start of the pandemic, and some of this had to do with idle farms starting up again to ensure food stability for the local market. We also saw some panic buys that caused lulls in sales for months to follow. Labour shortages have their typical turnover in level-entry positions, but senior staff took all precautions and followed government mandates to keep healthy in a safe workplace. Only two COVID cases were reported among our 50 full-time employees.
In terms of the flood, our hearts go out to all the farms, families and businesses that were affected by the flood in 2021. Top Shelf Feeds took part in daily alignment meetings with feed mills, transportation experts and governing bodies to ensure that all of our island farms were able to stay in production through this very devastating time. On behalf of all of our farm families, we thank everyone involved in keeping the grain moving, which allowed our mill to remain at full production.
To end, Top Shelf Feeds is grateful to the Vancouver Island growers and producers for their ongoing support. We ask government to continue to recognize the importance of our agriculture community here on Vancouver Island. We have many years left in the industry to service the growing population in our area.
Thank you very much.