Langley, BC-based Donald's Fine Foods has completed the purchase of the Moose Jaw Pork Packers pork processing plant which has been sitting idle since September 2006.

Donald's, which has been operating since 1993, currently runs a 15 hundred head per day pork slaughter fabrication facility at Langley and a distribution and further processing facility at Richmond and distributes products both domestically and internationally predominantly to Asia.

Senior vice-president Tony Martinez says with the number of hog producers in Saskatchewan and the company running out of capacity, it made sense to open up another facility.

Tony Martinez-Donald's Fine Foods

For us, we're really excited to get into Saskatchewan.

It's a province that seems to have a real business minded mentality which we're really excited about.

I think for us it means obviously growth and the ability to satisfy our customer base with that product that we could use right now and we're hoping that it's exciting around the Saskatchewan producer groups and stuff that currently don't have anything there and they'll have a pork slaughter processor in there.

They're really freighting hogs to either Alberta or Manitoba.

Certainly I think this is a good first step for us to feel out the province and make sure we're comfortable and they're comfortable with us and potentially it could be a real long term win win.

Mr Martinez says the company still needs to negotiate a union contract and then refurbish the facility to bring it up to Canadian Food Inspection Agency standards so products can be exported.

He says ideally the company would like to see the first hogs being slaughtered and processed at the facility by the end of the year.