Rabbit Run Supplied By Latin Connection

In early 2008, Herbert Morales found himself hunting rabbits.

Morales, head of trade development with Latin America for the Arkansas World Trade Center, was put on the quest by Regina Stowe, chief operating officer with Pel-Freez Arkansas LLC in Rogers.

Through 2007 Stowe was finding it more and more difficult to fill customers’ orders and keep her full force of employees working. The rabbit growers Stowe used, squeezed by high feed prices, were closing shop or reducing their operations. (Feed had become more expensive because farmers were growing higher-priced corn for ethanol instead of soybeans or alfalfa, the main ingredients in rabbit food.)

Privately owned by David Dubbell, Pel-Freez has two main sides to its business: it processes rabbits as food, much like a poultry processor, and it harvests everything it can from the rabbit’s body — including the brain, eyes and plasma — for the biomedical research industry. The company employs about 50 people, including some high-wage researchers and made about $5.5 million in revenue during 2008, according to industry estimates.

Suddenly on the losing end of a twisted food chain and desperate to not get swallowed by an ethanol economy, Stowe began talks with a rabbit grower in Mexico. But negotiations got bogged down by the details. Promised paperwork never materialized. No one had ever imported rabbits on that scale and there were questions about whether the grower could actually deliver the number that Pel-Freez needed to keep customer demand at bay.

Stowe was feeling like she’d been fricasseed.

About Christmastime in 2007, Stowe lamented to a friend after church. The friend recommended she call the Arkansas World Trade Center. She was put through to Morales.

He said that at the time he didn’t know a thing about the rabbit industry, and certainly not how to import them from Mexico, but he was more than happy to look into it. One of the AWTC’s main missions is to help connect Arkansas businesses with international trade opportunities, so the challenge was right up his alley.

Within a couple of months, Morales had made contact with the National Association of Rabbit Growers in Mexico City and culled potential Pel-Freez suppliers down to three.

In that process, Morales was able to discount Stowe’s original grower. He said he told her, “This is a Mickey Mouse, funky monkey sort of deal,” and that he didn’t think she should pursue that grower.

He was able to offer a solution. Of the three culls, two said they couldn’t handle the capacity, but they both pointed to the third, a company named Centro de Cunicultura.

Rabbit Redux
While Morales was in Mexico City on other business he met with the operators of Centro de Cunicultura and reported favorably back to Rogers. Stowe eventually sent some of her team to check out the facility (they had been once before to check out the first grower). A deal was struck.

Then details bogged the process down again. No one on either side of the border knew how to import live rabbits.

Stowe said she called every government agency she could think of — the USDA, the Center for Disease Control, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, U.S. Customs & Border Protection and the Food and Drug Administration.

“It was a bit of a nightmare,” she said.

Some agencies on both sides were telling her to go ahead and ship the rabbits, that it was fine, but no one would put it in writing, she said. The problem with that is, if rabbits sit at the border waiting indefinitely to be inspected, especially in warm weather, many will die.

Finally she called U.S. Congressman John Boozman’s office with a plea for help. Within a couple of weeks, she had an official letter authorizing the acceptance of live rabbits on U.S. soil.

The first shipment, a test of about 500 rabbits, arrived in October. All but a couple were delivered alive, Stowe said.

Pel-Freez now accepts a monthly shipment of 1,200 from Mexico and will through April. After that, it becomes too hot to ship bunnies across the border, plus demand wanes in the summer months.

The connection is important, not just for Pel-Freez’s business and six or so employees who might have lost their jobs due to reduced production at the plant, but also because it may lead to more business between Mexico and Arkansas, Morales said.

As a result of connections he made with the Mexican equivalent of the Department of Agriculture, Morales said he has an opportunity to tout Arkansas’ agricultural products or services.

If they find they need something from the U.S., Morales believes he will be one of the first people to get a call.

Denise Thomas, director of communications, membership and external relations for the AWTC, said the office has executed at least 15 such connections since its doors opened in January of 2007. There are eight to 10 more such connections in the pipeline, she said.

Rabbit is Rich
Pel-Freez mostly processes rabbits with a live weight between 4.75 pounds and 5.75 pounds, which are typically eight to 12 weeks old. The company pays about $1.40 per pound, so a truckload of 1,200 rabbits from Mexico is worth about $9,500, Stowe said.

Pel-Freez ships fresh and frozen rabbit meat to customers on both coasts and grocers like H.E.B. and Kroger. Pel-Freez is the only USDA graded and inspected rabbit processor in the U.S. and is twice as big as its largest competitor.

Stowe said rabbit meat is high in protein, low in fat and free of hormones. It is a more common dish in Europe, she said, and it’s more popular on the coasts because that’s where most European immigrants settle.

Peter Steinhart, owner of the 1936 Club on Dickson Street in Fayetteville, puts rabbit on the menu four or five times a year. He buys them fresh from Pel-Freez.

“It’s one of those things I’ve been eating since I grew up,” he said, pointing out his German background.

“It is all over Europe, but it’s becoming more and more popular here. It’s not that far out as it used to be,” Steinhart said. “It’s so versatile, it’s lean, and once you get past the ‘bunny’ factor, it’s good.”

Frequently he will simply braise it in a mustard sauce, he said.

Stowe said she would take twice as many rabbits if the Mexican grower could produce them. Pel-Freez processes between 250,000 and 300,000 rabbits a year, or between 5,000 and 6,000 per week. As it is the company has extra capacity and is looking to diversify its clientele with chickens. It already runs a poultry processing line every other week and is lean enough to easily switch its schedule for custom runs.

Rabbit at Rest
Pel-Freez Biologicals makes up about 60 percent of the overall business. The division sells tissue and blood products including whole organs, acetone powders and extracts, and antibodies.

Beverly Graham, sales and customer service manager for the division, said rabbit brain acetone powder is one of the top-selling products for the division. The powder is used to check the clotting time and ability of blood, and therefore serves as a coagulation diagnostic for researchers.

One of Pel-Freez Biological’s clients is BioMedica of Canada. The company manufactures the QuikCoag Blood Coagulation Testing System, which, it says, is a “comprehensive line of reagents and instrumentation used for monitoring cardiovascular risk, thrombotic disease, cancer, pre-surgical screening and routine clinical management of emergency, ambulatory and geriatric patients.” The product is sold worldwide.

Another top-seller is the eyes. Graham sells between 20,000 and 25,000 pair per year. Rabbit eyes are close to the same shape of human eyes and researchers can use them to practice LASIK surgery.

Graham said her customers depend on her ability to provide consistent materials that serve as a benchmark for testing.

While the meat business is nationwide, the biological business is international, Graham said. She’s started working with the AWTC to market her division to India and possibly China.