CQA^® Producer Profiles

CQA® Producer Profiles   Download PDF Tom Kennelly – AB (130 KB) Autres portraits de producteurs Stanley Boudreau – NS Stephen Moffett – NB Nathalie Arès – QC Clifford Horst – ON Florian Possberg – SK

Tom Kennelly

Sunhaven Farms
Wainwright, Alberta

While growing up in Ireland, Tom Kennelly learned a great deal about what it takes to raise animals. As a young boy, working on his family’s dairy and hog operation, he realized that farming is more than a job for him – it is a lifestyle, and something to which he is deeply committed. After completing coursework specializing in the production of pigs, he began managing hog farms in his native country before moving to Canada in 1986.

Tom, now based in Wainwright, Alberta, currently serves as a production manager for Sunhaven Farms, a company that represents several family-owned hog operations in the area. Part of his work deals with booking shipments for Sunhaven’s customers, and looking to see where improvements can be made on-farm to produce a top-quality product. Involved with the CQA^® program since its beginning, he sees it as a valuable resource for the operations he oversees. He credits Sunhaven Farms’ chairman, Brian Perkins, with being a CQA^® pioneer and explains that his support for the program makes the job of promoting food safety practices on-farm a lot easier.

Tom cites the sections in the CQA^® manual dealing with the transportation of animals, the use and storage of medications, and barn sanitation as being particularly relevant for his job, and the farms he helps to manage. The recordkeeping component of the program is also very important for Sunhaven Farms. “By having consistent, documented records, we are showing our accountability for the animals we raise, and our staff is more conscientious about good production practices,” he suggests. “Whether it’s the way we transport our hogs, or the improvements we’ve made in the areas of biosecurity and barn sanitation since our involvement with the program, CQA^® makes us think about ways to do things better.”

The operations that fall under the Sunhaven Farms ‘umbrella’ include farrow-to-wean, farrow-to-finish, and contract finishing barns, and will soon include a breeding stock operation. These farms ship a total of approximately 180,000 pigs a year, and carry a staff of between 80-100 people at any given time. Tom asserts that CQA^® is an excellent tool to use for training and talking to barn staff about what should be done on-farm.

“Without a doubt, the CQA^® program has helped all of our operations, overall. Even with experienced farmers, the program makes us focus on all the details, big and small, in every aspect of production,” he explains. “The program manual has been a fantastic resource to use when we train new barn staff. Before CQA^®, we’d be trying to explain verbally what we’re asking of staff in our barns. Now we have the manual. We can show them records; we can show them the good production practices. We can tell them, ‘This is what we’re doing on our farms. This is what we follow.’”

“CQA^® has had a great impact on the way we farm, and the on way we do business. It helps to keep us fine-tuned.”

To learn more about the CQA^® program, write or call the Canadian Pork Council at the address and phone number below.

CQA^® Program
Canadian Pork Council
1101 – 75 Albert Street
Ottawa, ON K1P 5E7

Tel: (613) 236-9239
Fax: (613) 236-6658

Email: cqa@cpc-ccp.com
Website: www.cpc-ccp.com