Reports of a big new birth in the Manitoba hog slaughter business are exaggerated, say hog industry officials.
“It’s not a reality yet,” said Manitoba Pork Council chair Karl Kynoch about reports that Olymel wants to build a new slaughter plant in eastern Manitoba.
“We’ve been there a lot in the last 15 years where people thought that there was a plant going to set down, and it didn’t happen.”
There has been no official statement saying that Olymel is planning to build a Manitoba hog slaughter plant. Industry sources say a provincial government official leaked the idea to a local newspaper for unknown reasons.
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Olymel is being tight-lipped about the situation.
“The information is a rumour,” an Olymel representative said in an e-mail to the Western Producer.
Olymel president Rejean Nadeau did not deny the rumours, but did not verify them in a letter he sent to Quebec employees on Oct. 6.
“While it is true that our arrival in Western Canada and the start-up of the second shift (at the Red Deer plant) have spurred a number of rumours, it is also true that Olymel is constantly on the lookout for new opportunities that may arise, both in Quebec and outside the province,” wrote Nadeau.
“Olymel L.P. has become a select partner and is often requested as such for a number of projects. Therefore we will have to deal more often with these kinds of leaks and rumours provincially, nationally and even internationally.”
Manitoba hog producers have been working hard to attract a second hog slaughterer to the province to provide competition to Maple Leaf Foods’ Brandon plant, which some producers say offers poor prices.
“I’ve been working at this for a year and a half,” said Kynoch, who called the rumours about an Olymel plant premature.
A few years ago Schneider Corp. announced it was going to build a new slaughter plant in Winnipeg, but the company was taken over by Maple Leaf and the plans abandoned.
Maple Leaf Foods has not yet added a second shift to its Brandon plant but has announced it plans to build a new plant in Saskatoon.
Perry Mohr, general manager of Manitoba Pork Marketing Co-operative, said Olymel has long considered entering the Manitoba market because of the large number of hogs the province produces. He has no doubt that the province could support another packer.
“Absolutely there are enough,” said Mohr, noting that Manitoba exported 4.5 million hogs in 2004.
But Manitoba does not have the ability to feed all those hogs to slaughter weight. More than three million of those exported hogs were weanlings and isoweans. Many new feeder barns would be needed to keep them in Manitoba until they reach slaughter weight.
“There would have to be a tremendous amount of capital put into building that infrastructure,” said Mohr.
Kynoch said the province can supply another hog packer, even if feeding capacity does not yet exist.
“We feel the timing’s right. Our industry is maturing. We already have the sow base here on the ground,” said Kynoch.
Keeping in Manitoba the 1.2 million slaughter hogs that are now exported annually is simply a matter of price, said Mohr. If packers offer prices that are as good as U.S. prices, pigs will stay in Manitoba.
