100 Percent of Hogs Diverted from Marion Street Plant to B Processed at Brandon
CANADA - Maple Leaf Consumer Foods reports 100 percent of the hogs that will be diverted from its Winnipeg primary pork processing operation will be processed in Brandon, writes Bruce Cochrane.Last week Maple Leaf announced the ramp-down of its Marion Street facility in Winnipeg will begin in early September with the final day of operation set for October 6 as it builds toward a double shift at its Brandon plant.
The Marion Street plant closure is part of Maple Leaf's plan to concentrate primary pork processing in Brandon and follows the June closure of the company's processing plant in Saskatoon.
Maple Leaf director of procurement for western Canada Jason Manness reports 100 percent of the hogs diverted from Winnipeg will be processed in Brandon.
Jason Manness-Maple Leaf Consumer Foods
We will continue to procure hogs across all three prairie provinces as we have done in the past and continue to do today.
We're in the process of offering long term contracts in both Saskatchewan and Manitoba and expect continued success with this initiative over the next couple of months.
With the closure of the Mitchell's facility earlier this year we've had the opportunity to work out much of the delivery schedule.
We were able to accommodate much of this transition through an increase of capacity at all three of our plants in Manitoba, that's the Brandon facility, the Marion Street facility as well as our custom kill arrangements at Springhill.
However the Winnipeg hogs, as stated earlier, will require us to ramp up capacity in Brandon beginning in early September and so that will require an additional capacity to accommodate the Marion Street facility hogs.
We certainly haven't begun working the delivery of the Winnipeg hogs into Brandon but we will be working on that front over the next month.
The Brandon plant currently processes 50 thousand hogs per week but that will increase to 85 thousand hogs per week on a full double shift.
Manness says Maple Leaf is working to fill that capacity.
He notes, the company is offering long term contracts in Saskatchewan and Manitoba and producer response has been excellent to date.