Every business deal needs a willing buyer and a willing seller.
But Saskatchewan hog farmers don’t yet have a willing seller in Maple Leaf Foods, the company that owns the Saskatoon hog slaughter plant.
When Scott McCain, the head of Maple Leaf’s hog production and processing division, was asked last week whether his company would be interested in selling its Saskatoon plant, which it intends to close, there was a long pause.
“I’m not sure about that,” he eventually said.
But he didn’t reject the possibility.
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“We haven’t faced that,” said McCain, who spoke to the Manitoba Pork Council on the day he heard about the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board’s interest in the plant. “I understand there’s a move from different people in Saskatchewan to look at those alternatives. (We’ll) look at it and see.”
In his speech to the Manitoba producers, McCain said shutting down the Saskatoon plant was his company’s first priority in its massive restructuring.
During the next few years, Maple Leaf wants to slash its nationwide hog slaughter capacity from seven million per year to between four and five million, break with its partners in hog barn ownership, sell most of its feed mills and centre its hog production and processing in Manitoba.
McCain said his company will try to shunt pigs from its plants in Winnipeg and Saskatoon to the Brandon plant, which could bring on a second shift next year.
Getting those pigs from the Saskatoon area, where producers will have to pay a higher freight bill to ship to Brandon, will be a challenge, he admitted.
“We’ll have to compete just like everybody else,” said McCain. “Producers are very smart and they will quickly do the math as to what we pay in Brandon versus what do other markets pay. We’ll have to be competitive.”
