Canada slaughtered 2.83 million cattle under federal inspection in 2025, and two plants an hour apart in southern Alberta killed about seven in ten of them. The United States has a Big Four. Canada has a Big Two, and when either one stops, the whole country's fed cattle market stops with it.
The kill, and where it happens
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada counts the federal kill by region. In 2025 the Western provinces slaughtered 2.24 million head, 79 percent of the total; Ontario 513,000; Quebec and Atlantic Canada 79,000. The year was the smallest since 2016 and 5 percent under 2024, after a peak of 3.31 million in 2021.
| Year | Canada, federal cattle kill | West | Ontario | Quebec and Atlantic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 3,305,511 | 2,621,193 | 612,713 | 71,605 |
| 2024 | 2,994,309 | 2,421,878 | 489,311 | 83,120 |
| 2025 | 2,833,642 | 2,241,361 | 513,444 | 78,837 |
2026 is running lighter still. Statistics Canada put the first half's cattle and calf slaughter at 1.5 million head, down 4.6 percent and the lowest January to June since 2016, with live exports to the United States down 16 percent. The weekly count through late October was 1.2 percent under 2025.
The plants
AAFC lists 18 federal cattle plants: eight in the West, five in Ontario, five in Quebec and Atlantic Canada. Most of them are small. The ones that set the market:
Cargill, High River, Alberta. Up to 4,700 head a day and about 2,200 staff, by Cargill's own page. The largest plant in the country. Cargill is a private US company.
JBS Food Canada, Brooks, Alberta. The former XL Foods plant, bought by JBS in 2013 and run at about 3,800 to 4,000 head a day. JBS Food Canada is a subsidiary of JBS USA, whose parent is JBS S.A. of Brazil, the same company behind the Big Four packer and the Pilgrim's chicken integrator.
Cargill, Guelph, Ontario. About 1,500 head a day and 950 staff, Eastern Canada's largest beef plant. It is the one plant outside Alberta that matters to the fed cattle price.
Harmony Beef, Rocky View County, Alberta. Capacity 750 a day on the former Ranchers' Beef site at Balzac, opened in March 2017, owned by the Vesta family.
Atlantic Beef Products, Albany, Prince Edward Island. The only federal beef plant east of Quebec, about 750 cattle a week and 180 staff, farmer-owned when it was built. It received a federal grant in January 2026 for halal processing.
The rest are regional: Canadian Premium Meats at Lacombe and Bouvry at Fort Macleod in Alberta, True North Foods in Winnipeg, St. Helen's and three other Ontario plants, five small Quebec plants.
How concentrated is it? AAFC said in May 2020 that 77 percent of Canada's cattle were slaughtered in Alberta, and the trade press that spring put the two big Alberta plants at about 70 percent of the national kill. No plant-level share has been published since, but the regional split has not moved: the West was 79 percent in 2025.
What 2020 showed
COVID shut High River on April 20, 2020 and brought it back on May 4 on one shift; Brooks ran at half capacity for weeks and did not restore its second shift until May 21. Canfax counted the damage: weekly slaughter fell to 24,000 head, the smallest on record back to 1973; in seven weeks the plants processed 150,000 fewer cattle than in 2019; about 100,000 to 125,000 head backed up in Western feedlots; and Alberta fed prices in the second half of 2020 averaged their lowest since 2013.
That is the Canadian version of the Holcomb fire in the US article: not fewer cattle, fewer places to kill them, and the price breaks anyway.
Why it matters for a Canadian buyer
Three things follow from a two-plant country.
The fed price is an Alberta price. When one Alberta plant slows, cattle back up and the fed price falls even if the US price does not. Ontario trades on its own plant and its own basis.
Canadian beef moves both ways across the border. Canada shipped 751,607 live cattle and calves south in 2025, worth $2.5 billion, and the United States imported about 1.0 billion pounds of Canadian beef, 19 percent of its imports, with no quota and no duty. A Canadian buyer competes with the US packer for the same cattle and with the US grinder for the same beef.
The grade is high. In 2025 Prime and AAA made up 79 percent of A-grade carcasses, and the Canada Beef market report had that share at 84 to 86 percent to start 2026. The Canada versus USDA grading article explains why a Canadian AAA is a USDA Choice, not a Prime.