At the end of June Manitoba Pork Marketing accepted the last load of pigs at its assembly yard in Winnipeg.

The closure of the yard followed the October 2007 closure of Maple Leaf's Marion Street pork processing plant and the shift of that capacity to its facility in Brandon.

Manitoba Pork Marketing CEO Perry Mohr says, although some producers delivered to Winnipeg to the last day, the transition has been virtually seamless.

Perry Mohr-Manitoba Pork Marketing

They are adjusting to the alternatives that are out there.

Those of course are our New Bothwell facility at Qunitaine's, there's some producers that have elected to go direct to Brandon, some that have elected to go direct to Neepawa and we are considering one other alternative that we are currently working on.

It would be located in around number six highway in the perimeter and it would be a facility very similar to the addition that Qunitaine's put on for Manitoba Pork Marketing at the New Bothwell facility.

It would be much smaller in nature than what producers who were delivering to Winnipeg were accustomed to.

It would be a straw based facility where by the animals would be bedded on straw.

It would not be heat as this facility was in the past.

It would be considerably scaled down version of an assembly yard.

And we would hope to capture some business from the western side of the province as well as the Interlake area at that particular facility.

Mohr says hopes to have an answer on whether that facility will go forward by mid-August.

He notes the phase out of the Winnipeg yard has resulted in significant cost savings that are being passed to producers in the form of a 20 cent reduction in levies from 70 cents to 50 cents per pig that will take effect this week.