By Andrew Heck

When Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year, many people around the world were appalled at the violence and atrocities. In Canada, the prevalence of Ukrainian identity differs from one region of the country to the next, but on some parts of the prairies, it is inescapable – a fundamental part of the cultural fabric.

Mundare is a town of nearly 1,000 people, located about 100 kilometres east of Edmonton – in the heart of ‘Kalyna Country’ – representing a collection of settlements and other heritage sites demonstrating the Ukrainian presence in east-central Alberta.

Among the most recognizable institutions of the area is Stawnichy’s Mundare Sausage – formerly known as ‘Stawnichy’s Meat Processing’ for many years. The company is recognized for offering many delicious meat products and Ukrainian heritage foods, with probably none more famous than the original smoked sausage ring. Served hot or cold, customers can find it at Stawnichy’s deli in Mundare, at their dual deli-and-restaurant space – Uncle Ed’s Restaurant and Mundare Sausage House – in Edmonton and at many grocery locations across the province. You might even come across it being sold for a minor hockey team fundraiser!

Small-town butcher shops are often held in high esteem by those who frequent them – family, friends and neighbours of those business owners. Stawnichy’s takes that a step farther, penetrating urban markets that have little to no association with Mundare, the town. Thanks to years of hard work and dedication to high quality, Stawnichy’s reputation today precedes it.

A little company with a big reach

Ed Stawnichy began processing meat products on the family farm, starting in 1959. Since then, four generations of his family have been involved in the operation, including Ed’s grandson, Kyler Zeleny, who plays a key role in directing the business.

“My gido [grandfather] always had core values for our company,” said Zeleny. “My baba [grandmother] still works in the shop six days a week, not because she needs the paycheque, but because she loves it.”

Zeleny grew up on a farm outside of Mundare and spent plenty of time at the shop over the years. Eventually, he left to pursue higher education, including a PhD, but has since returned to his rural roots.

“I started working in the shop as a teenager, but even when I was younger, it was a bit like the local daycare for us. At one point or another, we’ve had probably two dozen family members working in this company.”

For Zeleny, the success of Stawnichy’s is closely tied to Ukrainian identity and mentality.

“Early on, everyone here was Ukrainian. Those pioneers had the same instincts as ‘hustle culture’ today: you keep moving, you never put all your eggs in one basket, and you remain grateful.”

Diversification has always been an important strategy for Stawnichy’s to maintain its business.

“We keep our food simple and authentic, but we’re always trying to modernize where it makes sense. In the end, it’s still hearty, filling, homemade, family-style food. We’re looking at adding additional Ukrainian products to our lineup in addition to new non-Ukrainian products.”

Still, the sausage reigns supreme! Over six decades, millions of sausage rings have been smoked. If straightened, each ring measures about two feet in length, which means Stawnichy’s has smoked enough sausage to stretch all the way between Mundare and Kyiv, and then halfway back again. That would seem true-to-form for Ukrainians, whose idea of hospitality typically includes very generous portions of food.

“We’re privileged to have what we have. We’re truly fortunate.”

Modern times, timeless products

Stawnichy’s does not have its own hog slaughter capacity, but the company does try to source its pork as locally as possible. Often, that means from abattoirs within Alberta but also from other parts of western Canada, when necessary.

“It’s difficult, because there aren’t as many suppliers out there as we would like,” said Zeleny. “I think we need better funding and opportunities for smaller facilities. That provides more options for producers and provides better food security for consumers.”

Stawnichy’s facility in Mundare is the site where virtually all of the company’s products are processed. The facility is part of the provincially inspected system, which means the company is unable to market products outside of Alberta; however, entering the federal system has crossed Zeleny’s mind.

“It’s possible within five or 10 years we would consider it. But I wonder, are we happy with our size? Do we need to get bigger? Growth upon growth isn’t something I believe in. It’s just not who we are.”

As time goes on, Stawnichy’s proliferation of the retail market continues to expand, with more than 190 stores in the province carrying their products. They recently underwent a rebranding of all their packaging, and they are considering the possibility of opening a new deli and restaurant in south Edmonton, to complement their northside location.

“COVID-19 changed things for sure. We had to close our restaurant in accordance with public health restrictions, and our fundraising efforts for local sports teams took a major hit. Like all businesses, we faced higher costs and reduced supplies, which has made it difficult.”

Unmotivated by the prospect of exponential growth and wealth for the family, Stawnichy’s makes a point of hiring local workers, but recently, two refugees from Ukraine were brought on board to work in meat cutting.

“We like to think we’re an integral part of our community and for those who choose to live here. We think small-town life is important. When two Ukrainians approached us not long ago, however, we hired them on the spot. It was a no-brainer.”

In addition to hiring Ukrainians, Stawnichy’s has pledged more than $10,000 directly in support of Ukraine, while also supporting the local community on an ongoing basis through the Edward E. Stawnichy Foundation, which provides scholarships to area high school students, along with funding other charitable initiatives for local residents.

“We’re happy to feed people and offer a product that has a lot of quality. We’ve been doing the same thing for more than 60 years, and we’re not cutting any corners.”

Mundare is monumental

Just down the road from Mundare is Vegreville – a considerably larger town known for being home to the world’s largest ‘pysanka’ (Ukrainian Easter egg), made from aluminum tiles, constructed in 1975. You may recall seeing it on the front cover of the Spring 2022 edition of the Canadian Hog Journal, published this past May.

Not to be outdone, in 2001, Mundare erected an oversized fibreglass ring of ‘kovbasa’ (the cold-smoked sausage that made Stawnichy’s a household name). A third addition to the visible Ukrainian presence in the region includes a giant fibreglass perogy in the nearby town of Glendon, built in 1993. While these roadside attractions may seem like gimmicks, they are casual reminders that those communities still feel a loving connection to Ukraine.

“This is the mecca of Ukrainian culture outside of Ukraine,” said Zeleny. “The culture is still represented in the local arts, institutions, street signs, businesses, you name it. The cultural complexion has changed somewhat over the years, but the community still remains very Ukrainian.”

On the grounds of the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton, a copper statue commemorates the arrival of Ukrainian settlers in the province, in 1891, and on the grounds of the Saskatchewan Legislature in Regina, another statue serves as a reminder of the Holodomor: the intentional starvation of more than three million Ukrainians in the Soviet Union, between 1932 and 1933.

Clearly, in good times and bad, feast and famine are inevitable defining features of being Ukrainian, and the connection extends from all over Canada all the way back to the homeland.

Food unites us all

In a 2010 interview with Slate magazine, Anthony Bourdain – the late chef, travel writer and TV host – said, “Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.”

Companies like Stawnichy’s are more than just businesses – they are deeply embedded within their communities and cherished by those they serve. For Ukrainian-Canadians, ‘traditional’ fare like sausage, perogies, cabbage rolls and other staple items not only fill bellies but also cause hearts to swell with pride. When the invasion of Ukraine took place, those hearts – whether in Ukraine or in Canada – began burning with passion.

“With everything that’s happened in our world in the past two years, another catastrophe is not what anyone needs,” said Zeleny. “We just want to help be a part of the solution.”

By Andrew Heck

When porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) broke for the first time ever in Alberta, in 2019, the province’s fears of its inevitable spread were confirmed. What was not clear – as in many disease outbreak investigations – is the source of how it arrived on-farm.

“Our disease surveillance program regularly tests for PED, among other viruses of concern,” said Javier Bahamon, Quality Assurance and Production Manager, Alberta Pork. “Before the outbreaks, and since, thousands upon thousands of tests have come back negative, which is a positive sign for our industry.”

Despite surveillance, and despite a lengthy investigation, Alberta’s four PED cases from 2019 remain a minor mystery. Could it have been a contaminated feed ingredient? Poor truck washing? An unintentional lapse in biosecurity? We may never know for sure, but we do know the virus can be present in manure. Is that manure capable of causing the virus to shed in piglets?

With PED flaring up in other parts of Canada, and as farmers turn to spreading manure on their crop fields as a way to offset high fertilizer prices, this question has become important to answer. Thanks to support from Swine Innovation Porc (SIP), Results Driven Agriculture Research (RDAR) and provincial funding partners, researchers at the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) – led by Qiang Liu and supported by Colette Wheler, Trina Racine and Mingmin Liao – began looking for clues last year, and their findings are now helping to better inform Canada’s PED response.

Simulating barn conditions, for testing

The concern over manure stems from the idea that piglets are highly exposed to manure in the barn, and some of that is ingested. Additionally, when it comes to applying manure to fields, equipment used in the process can be considered fomites – transmission pathways – for the virus.

To find out if it is possible for piglets to shed PED virus after ingesting contaminated manure, three groups of newborn piglets were fed highly concentrated lagoon materials containing RNA of PED virus – a simplified genetic component – which was collected from infected lagoons by representatives from Alberta Pork and Alberta Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Economic Development. For this specific case study, the lagoon materials were necessarily gathered six-and-a-half months following the initial PED outbreaks in Alberta, which may have impacted results.

Using three commercially available pregnant sows from Prairie Swine Centre in Saskatoon, piglets were farrowed and immediately brought into the study. After being fed the lagoon materials, the piglets were observed for diarrhea and mortality over the course of a week, which could potentially indicate PED infection. For a deeper dive, fecal swabs were collected for daily analysis.

Following the trial, none of the piglets showed any abnormal clinical signs, though there was mild diarrhea observed in a few piglets. Diarrhea consistency trended toward the lower end of fecal scoring – toward “soft, pasty like toothpaste, sticks to swabs” – which would not be the case in the event of PED infection, where diarrhea should be seen at the higher, more severe end.

The mild diarrhea was gone after a couple of days, and the piglets completely recovered. Body weight gains were similar among piglets having diarrhea and piglets without diarrhea, further indicating that the diarrhea was not the result of PED but some other factor. Fecal swabs failed to yield any of the virus RNA at a detectable level as well.

In this specific case study, under the conditions in which the lagoon materials were gathered, the researchers concluded that the exposure of these animals to the infected material failed to produce infectivity or clinical signs of PED in the animals themselves. Other factors, it seems, are likely responsible for Alberta’s cases of PED in 2019.

Study results are positive, with caution

While the study’s supporters are pleased to have gained further insight into PED’s lack of infectivity in manure, with consideration given to the time period in which the study took place after the initial outbreaks, the important take-home message for producers is not to rest on their laurels when it comes to proper practices.

“We are happy with what the study’s findings, as this study provides a reference when dealing with contaminated manure,” said Bahamon. “However, producers are always advised to be vigilant when it comes to using manure from their operations, since there are still so many more unknowns out there, and we do not want to give anyone a false sense of security, especially in places where PED is an active problem.”

Given the limitations of the study, it cannot be absolutely confirmed that PED virus shedding in piglets is impossible when exposed to contaminated manure. Key factors include the length of time following an outbreak and the number of outbreaks in any given geographic area. These must be taken into account when it comes to evaluating the risk of spreading the disease, and a different level of risk may be observed when dealing with certain cases when other concerns come into play.

As the industry’s understanding of PED continues to improve, mitigating risks, the threat posed by PED remains ever-present. With time and further investigation, the hope is that the industry can further adapt to the realities of this virus, for the benefit of healthy hog production.