Red Deer May 12, 2018: While in Red Deer to launch Diversity Magazine and organize Diversity Awards, I came across some inspiring people whom I could not wait to get to Edmonton to share their stories.
“You are who you are” is the summary of the personality of the friendly, passionate, optimistic, inspiring, energetic, and ever going 57 years old Mercedes Messinger, who came to Canada with her three children and her husband Joachim from Germany in the year 2000. As she said in her own words, she immigrated to Canada to “simplify” her life. Today, she is still very busy, if not more busy, with her family; running a meat plant in the Hamlet of Mirror in Lacombe County, Alberta, and a butcher shop, bistro and cafe, in the Albertan City of Red Deer.
On May 12, 2018, Mercedes extended her Red Deer hospitality to sit down with Diversity Magazine to share her journey after our team had a great breakfast of; potatoes, eggs, and steak, at her café, made by her husband Joachim. The beef in the breakfast was some of the most tasty I have ever eaten as far as my memory can recount. Curious to know why her beef tastes so different, Mercedes said her beef is fresh, never frozen, raised locally in the neighbouring City of Lacombe supporting local farmers, grass fed, hormone and chemical free. Besides selling her beef at her artisan butcher, bistro and café, she sells exclusively to the Italian Centre Shop in Edmonton. Her beef is also Halal. At this point; her french connection with her time in a German town close to the border with France, connection to Italian Centre Shop, selling Halal meat, I could see why she talks, walks, and trade multiculturalism.
According to Islamic traditions, before being slaughtered, God’s name is pronounced over the meat as a show of appreciation, before the animal is killed. The only difference between halal meat and other meat is that it was blessed as it was killed.
Her love for arts is visible from the entrance of her shop, a trend which carries all the way into her office. “If you want to go ahead you can. No one is holding you back in this country. You just need to ask,” Mercedes told Diversity Magazine, with her own journey exemplified by how far she and her family have come since the year 2000 with her meat plant, butcher shop, café and bistro.
Her son and daughter all work in their businesses. Any ambitious person will always seek a new challenge and Messingers are no different. They opened the butcher shop, café and bistro a year ago even though they were already busy with the meat plant, against their own wishes of moving to Canada to be less busy. “You are who you are,” she said as she just cannot stop going.
Asked what the future holds for her and her family, she said they are where they want to be, at the Italian Centre, and will not go into so many things so as not to water down the quality of their products. “We will stay a small family business,” she concluded.
Mercedes Messinger (right) and her husband, Joachim (left) at the Messinger Meats Artisan Butcher
