The shuttered Moose Jaw Pork Packers plant will reopen by the end of this year if all goes as planned for the new owners.Donald’s Fine Foods/Britco Pork of Richmond, B.C., bought the plant in Moose Jaw, Sask., for $100,000 after the city took it over for unpaid taxes.City manager Garry McKay said council would ratify the only bid it received for the plant during a May 17 meeting. The city had hoped to recover more than $700,000 in unpaid taxes and other bills.The plant has been part of the Moose Jaw landscape for decades, but has been closed for most of the last five years after an attempt to restructure under court protection failed.Tony Martinez, vice-president of the new ownership, said SaskPork invited the company to take a look at the plant and consider a move east to Saskatchewan.“They like his model,” he said of the business that Donald Leung established in Vancouver in 1993. “This was a quick way of getting in (to Saskatchewan).”Donald’s Meat Distribution acquired a small abattoir in Langley, B.C., in 1997 and turned it into a specialty pork plant, Britco Pork Inc.The company works directly with hog producers, such as Sunhaven Farms in Alberta, who raise hogs to certain specifications.It sells under a variety of brand names and types, including antibiotic free, free range and processed products.The company began an expansion project in 2004 and a year later Donald’s Fine Foods emerged in a new facility in Richmond.“We’re out of capacity currently,” Martinez said. “It will be an extension of our business and will allow us to service our customers.”He said the company will work with Saskatchewan hog producers who will raise animals to specification. It’s also looking for a new name for the Moose Jaw plant.The plant will remain at a capacity of 1,000 hogs per day. Donald’s kills about 1,500 at its B.C. plant.However, the company must first spend millions to refurbish and upgrade the building. Martinez said walls and concrete have to be re-placed and leaky roofs repaired or replaced.“We’re going to do fresh (pork) in there, which means we’re going to put in some cryovac equipment,” he said. “Those machines alone are a half million dollars.”The facility also requires Canadian Food Inspection Agency status to ship to its domestic and foreign customers.“Realistically, we’re hoping by the end of the year we can get it all done and start killing the first hog,” Martinez said.The plant will hire 150 to 200 employees, depending on how it is set up, he added. Under Saskatchewan law, Donald’s must recognize the successor rights of the Retail Warehouse Department Store Union, which represents workers at the building.RWDSU secretary-treasurer Garry Burkart said he was pleased Donald’s would negotiate a new contract to replace the one that expired. The only right former workers have is to apply for a job.“There is no automatic recall rights for anybody because the place went out of business,” he said.The union will work to bargain a collective agreement that could be ratified once employees are hired.He said he hadn’t heard from any of the workers who lost their jobs when the plant closed in the fall of 2006 after a brief reopening.“I’ve got to assume everybody’s out working, and they may or may not decide to come back to this place,” he said.A group of employees was one of the partners that worked out the last deal to open the plant, but Burkart said the documents finalizing the ownership were never signed.
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