Gabriel Montiel, of Cabaña La Armonía, has managed to bring frozen, vacuum-packed lamb cuts in 500-gram packages to supermarkets across Misiones, starting from 1,100 breeding ewes, and now seeks to bring in small producers under the same traceability standards.
Sheep producer Gabriel Montiel, owner of Cabaña La Armonía, has managed to get frozen, vacuum-packed lamb cuts into supermarkets across much of Misiones in packages of about 500 grams. The milestone caps a process that began six years ago when, as he recalls, there was not even a place in the province where sheep could be legally slaughtered.
From his farm, located about 60 kilometers from Posadas on the road to San José, Montiel now runs 1,100 breeding ewes and has a cycle II plant to cut and package meat that is processed at a licensed plant in the area.
The animals reach about 35 kilograms of live weight in roughly five months and achieve a carcass yield of close to 48.5%. Slaughter takes place at a nearby meatpacking plant licensed for provincial transit, and the meat then goes through the farm's cycle II plant, where frozen, vacuum-packed cuts are prepared in packages of about 500 grams.
The bet is on changing the logic of consumption. “You come in, you buy 500 grams today and you eat it tonight. You don't have to take home a whole lamb to eat who-knows-when at a barbecue with a group of friends,” Montiel told Bichos de Campo. “It's the same step pork took, and the same one chicken took,” he said, referring to other meats that went through similar processes.
Montiel is not done yet and now wants to bring small producers into the commercial circuit he has built. The idea is to give them ewes and then turn them into suppliers for his brand, provided they produce with the same traceability he demands at his own farm.
“We are at 1,100 ewes, we have capacity for 500 more, and what I'm setting up now is finding producers who start meeting the same traceability standards we do,” he explained.
By his calculation, a farm of 40 or 50 hectares can support between 150 and 200 ewes without necessarily displacing other productive activities. “Here the producer lives on the farm, can work it with the family, and it's a product that evolves much faster than a cow,” he said.
Montiel does not believe the solution is simply to gather lambs from different farms without producing them under certain protocols. “The important thing is to pursue traceability in the animal. You have to have the weight, the type of feed, the whole process,” he explained. That is why he began testing a scheme with small producers, especially young ones: La Armonía's surplus ewes are handed over to those who join the system, with the commitment that they will later sell their lambs to the farm and follow the same production system.
For now the product is sold only within Misiones. The limit is sanitary and administrative: the meatpacking plant they work with does not yet have federal transit authorization, a requirement for sending that meat outside the province and even for dreaming of exporting it.
Montiel sees that obstacle as a new stage in a process that is moving forward little by little. First came finding a place to slaughter legally; then came cutting, packaging and a presence on supermarket shelves. The next step will be securing the ability to cross the Misiones border.
For nine years he worked from his restaurant to show that sheep meat could break out of the traditional whole-lamb scheme and reach the table in the form of different dishes and cuts; that same logic is what he is now trying to transfer to supermarket shelves. While he keeps seeking scale, this producer holds to an idea he has repeated for some time: “Sheep farming in Misiones is here to stay.”
