EARLTON - It's an unusual story.
A couple boarding horses in southern Ontario looks to the north for opportunity and finds it watching YouTube.
Shane Wright owns Wright Acres in Earlton and raises pastured pork with regenerative farming methods that benefit not only the pigs but also have environmental benefits.
Their story starts in the small community of Kingsville in the Windsor area where he met his wife.
"I met my wife and we were boarding horses. Each horse was $400 a month, so it was like 'We need to start looking for a place.' And she says, 'What do you think about the north? Let's go.' And that's how we ended up here."
Earlton was attractive because of the price of the land.
"We moved up in 2016 and we found our farm. It was actually a bank repo, so we were pretty blessed in that way, and so it all started from there. We bought it for the sake of the horses, and then we figured we had a surplus of land. Let's figure out something else to do with it. So we bought a small herd of cattle.
The Wrights did that up until last spring, then sold the herd "because the price of cattle was just too good to say no."
This is when the pork business was born.
"Honestly, I stumbled upon a YouTube video and I just kind of started small and I figured 'I think I could really do this' and I've been growing it ever since. And now we've reached the commercial scale, and here we are!"
The Wrights started ramping up the pork business because everybody and their cousin have a small beef herd in the Timiskaming area. So the beef market selling directly to the consumer in that area was a little more challenging.
"There are not so many pig farmers, especially that raise them on pasture and in a regenerative manner. And so we're trying to really kind of corner that market and build it as much as we can while we still have the opportunity."
A direct-to-consumer business like the Wright's can be difficult, the main reason being, trying to sell the customer the product.
"With the pork, our biggest challenge is everyone is so used to the big box stores like your Costco, Independent, Walmart, etcetera. They're used to eating those pork products and getting indigestion, gassiness, and symptoms like that. But as soon as they try our pork products that have been raised in a clean environmental manner, they don't experience any of those symptoms and they become a returning customer.
"So it's almost like, if you can get the customer to try it, it sells itself.
The Wrights had a booth at the Northern Ontario Agri-Food Pavilion showcasing northern businesses on an international stage at Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in 2023 and had a great experience.
The pork business has been good for the Wrights and their customers. The farm has sold out its Fall 2024 orders and currently has a wait list started for the spring pigs which will feed over the winter months.
"Hopefully it's a good one," Shane told BayToday. "I don't really want to get too carried away. I Like to stay humble about everything. But we've been growing and I've been doubling in size every year I started. This would be my fifth year raising hogs. I started with seven, doubled and doubled and doubled and now we're up to the commercial size of 50 plus."
FedNor will spend $716,800 to help operate the Northern Ontario Agri-Food Pavilion at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto, the world's largest indoor agri-food exhibition. Close to 50 northern Ontario agri-food and services businesses will be at the annual global event.
The Northern Ontario Agri-Food Pavilion, which has been a premier attraction at the Royal for over two decades, has grown in size and scope reaching 7,100 square feet. Since 2015, the FedNor-funded pavilion has featured close to 400 businesses and organizations from across northern Ontario.
Every year, 300,000 people come to The Fair to celebrate the very best food, livestock and horsemanship this country has to offer.
The Royal opens this Friday, Nov 1, and runs until Sunday, Nov 10.
