Cargill’s beef slaughter plant in High River, Alta., is upgrading its facilities to increase boxed beef storage and use its own waste products to produce electricity.
Steve Molitor of Cargill said the plant can store 45,000 boxes of beef but produces 35,000 boxes daily. That has required it to ship and store boxed beef in Calgary.
New facilities will be able to store 80,000 more boxes, said Molitor. That will reduce costs in shipping product to another facility for distribution and reduce fuel consumption in refrigerated trailer units that now sit on site as additional storage.
The new facility is expected to be running by April, Molitor said.
Cargill is also building a fluidized bed boiler at the plant, which will burn specified risk material, manure and other wastes to produce electricity for plant operations.
The High River plant is one of two in Canada and 10 in North America operated by Cargill.
