It’s been an exciting year at Cardinal Meat Specialists, one of Canada’s leading meat processors headquartered in Brampton, Ont. A third-generation family-owned company, it celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Cator family in the meat industry—they began with a small butcher shop in Bowmanville, Ont., in 1925. The company itself, as it stands today, will turn 60 in 2026. Indeed they and the owner, Brent Cator, have a lot to celebrate. From launching new cooking technologies to helping enhance Canada’s food safety standards, the company has been at the forefront of innovation in the meat processing sector.
It introduced Tenderform burgers in the 1980s, thereby creating a premium line of patties, which helped the company make inroads into the foodservice sector.
The burger space got another boost when Cardinal Meats launched its proprietary natural texture forming (NTF) process in 2006 to enhance the texture and juiciness of meat and plant-based burgers.
“It shrinks less, cooks faster and more evenly,” explains Brent, whose grandfather Jack Cator began his business peddling meat on the streets of Ontario. “When burgers were traditionally selling as the lowest priced item on the back of the menu to get rid of steak trimmings, we did two things differently. We were the very first to individually quick freeze patties. We also created premium burgers. They were twice the price of every other burger, and they just took off because they were more than twice as good.”
As part of the centennial celebrations, Cardinal Meats released a new burger this spring, the Cardinal Roadhouse Smash Burger.Cardinal Meats is well-known for burgers, having launched the Roadhouse brand of burgers in mid 1980s, sold in Costcos across Canada. While their best-selling burger is the classic Angus Roadhouse burger, the company makes nearly 170 burgers (meat and plant-based), largely for the foodservice industry. Their clients include Harvey’s, Sysco, Swiss Chalet, etc.
“Burgers have been around for so long that it’s almost moving outward in a bunch of different directions. You have bigger, thicker burgers with melted cheese. Smashburgers are all over the place. There are Oklahoma Burgers with onions cooked into the burger,” explains Caleb Lobraico, executive chef at Cardinal Meats.
Companies are experimenting with burger thickness levels and textures, bun types, toppings and flavours. For instance, Cardinal Meats offers a Korean BBQ Beef Burger that chef Caleb enhanced with coleslaw, pickles, cucumber and sesame oil for an Asian flavour during a tasting session. At the same meeting, I got the opportunity to taste their new line of RTE meat-based entrées.
Launched in spring 2025, the Sous Chef by Cardinal line of products are available in five flavours—Marsala Braised Chicken, Fiery Chicken Arrabbiata, Rustic Beef Bourguignon, Szechuan Braised Beef and my personal favourite, Chicken Tikka Masala.
The products seek to bring restaurant-quality ready-to-eat meals to homes. These flash-frozen products are sold in the refrigerated section of grocery stores and are recommended to be consumed within 72 hours of purchase. Developed by a team of culinary professionals led by Lobraico, Sous Chef was months in the making. They had to ensure the long-grain rice didn’t shed water; the vegetables and meat, which usually cook at different temperatures retained their texture and melded well when reheated; and in the case of the Marsala Braised Chicken, how do you impart a wine flavour without actual wine? These were some of the challenges the product development team had to consider when creating the Sous Chef by Cardinal line.
It’s striking that the flavours in the Sous Chef aren’t necessarily from Europe or North America. They took care to include Asian flavours too, thereby addressing a growing consumer demand for global culinary experiences from the comfort of their homes.
The meat products were manufactured using Cardinal Meats’ proprietary Safe Sous Vide cooking technology. Cardinal is one of the few companies in North America using this technology at an industrial scale. The company has also taken a leadership position in food safety. In 1998, Cardinal Meats became the first HACCP-certified protein processor in Canada. It was the first to use DNA lab technology for microbiological testing in 2003.
Fresh out of university, Brent began working as a buyer in the company because he wanted a job where he wouldn’t feel bored! Clearly, there were enough ‘challenges’ at Cardinal Meats to hold Brent’s interest. He has been with Cardinal Meats for nearly 40 years now and has helped the company grow leaps and bounds.
Brent became the company’s president in 2004, and according to data provided by Cardinal, sales doubled within three years. The company also acquired the Elite Meat Company, known for its peameal bacon products, in 2018. In 2023, Cardinal’s Stanfield Road plant in Mississauga was merged with their main facility in Brampton, which was expanded by 33,000 sf, thus bringing the current plant to 122,000 sf. Brent also expanded his marketing and sales team to help facilitate growth.
Brent has invested a lot of time into food safety. He has helped developed unique technologies for cooked proteins, served on a North American Ecoli taskforce, and represented the processing industry on a Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) taskforce focused on enhancing food safety regulations.
He has also successfully positioned Cardinal Meats as a solutions provider rather than as a food manufacturer alone.
“Customers quite frankly don’t want to be told how their business should be done. They want suppliers who will partner with them to find optimal solutions. We create a lot of custom solutions,” explains Brent, who believes demand for hi-protein products will continue to grow.
Cardinal’s focus on elevating undervalued cuts of meat while offerings consumers premium products in convenient formats as well as creating custom solutions for clients should serve it well as it looks to another 100 years of growth.
Read the full article here; https://www.foodincanada.com/features/cardinal-meats-family-celebrates-100-years-in-the-business-with-new-products/
