Last week LaBroquerie based Hytek Limited announced it has signed a deal to purchase the Springhill Farms pork processing plant in Neepawa.

Hytek plans to assume full operation of the plant in January and invest an additional 35 million dollars to bring the plant to full capacity and expand value added processing, creating an anticipated 200 additional jobs.

Manitoba Pork Council chair Karl Kynoch says this will help reduce western Canada's reliance of U.S. plants while creating additional value added opportunities.

Karl Kynoch-Manitoba Pork Council

At this time now, if you back and remember the trade action that we had launched against us from the U.S., it just shows the reliance that we have on the U.S. packers right now and there's a great border risk there.

Anytime that we can expand the processing capacity here in Manitoba we reduce that border risk and the threat of a trade action against us.

Also, the more capacity that we have here in Manitoba, it greatly reduces the freight rate for us to haul our hogs to market and it also gives us more added competition.

To have Hytek purchase that plant and the Maple Leaf plant planning to double shift, we have two plants in Manitoba that are really looking at the future and the long term viability of this industry.

That's really positive to have two very strong processing plants from here forward and it also gives producers a little bit better level of confidence that there's going to be shackle space to process hogs here.

It also greatly improves the value added and creates more jobs, more direct jobs and spin off jobs for all Manitobans.

Kynoch notes, to operate efficiently and turn the best profits, these plants need to run at full capacity which will allow them to pay a little bit more for the hogs putting more money back in the producer's pockets.

He stresses every hog processed in Manitoba injects more money into the provincial economy.

Further Reading

	- Go to a previous article on this story by clicking here.
	- Or, for more comment on Hyrek/ Springhill click here.