Western Manitoba is now officially the heart of hog processing in the province, as Maple Leaf Foods plans to add a second pork-cutting shift to its Brandon plant.
The expansion in Brandon comes at Winnipeg’s expense, as Maple Leaf also announced it will close its killing and cutting plant on Warman Road in Winnipeg in September, eliminating 650 jobs.
Maple Leaf said the consolidation of its Manitoba operations was necessary to remain competitive.
“We are establishing highly efficient scale plants … securing a strong future for the Manitoba pork industry,” said Rick Young, president of Maple Leaf Consumer Foods, in a release.
Read Also

Chinese offer complicates canola marketing
Recently the Chinese ambassador indicated that there would be a potential deal between Canada and China regarding the current tariff war.
The operational changes mean that Maple Leaf will now have a double shift in Brandon for killing and a double shift for cutting meat into loins, bellies and roasts.
The company will spend $50 million to expand the Brandon facility and expects to create 400 jobs in Brandon by 2009.
Maple Leaf will also spend $25 million to upgrade its Lagimodiere Road plant in Winnipeg, which will become headquarters of its ham-boning operations in Western Canada. The company expects to hire 400 to 500 new workers to staff the expanded plant.
A Maple Leaf representative said the shifts in operation are part of a larger strategy, released more than a year ago.
“We announced changes in our pork strategy in late 2006,” said Lynda Kuhn. “At that time we advised our employees at Warman Road that the production happening there would transition to Brandon.”
A union leader said the restructuring was prompted by a rising Canadian dollar and the need to take advantage of economies of scale.
“To be efficient, with the change in the dollar, they were going to focus more on double-shift plants,” said Rob Ziegler, president of United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 832. “If you have a $200 million worth of a plant … you don’t want to use it for one shift a day.”
It was clear, Ziegler said, that the Warman Road plant would no longer be used for slaughter or cutting.
The question was, could it be used for another form of value-added processing?
Maple Leaf presented an option of turning the facility into a ham-boning plant, to produce processed ham and other products.
The Warman Road union turned down that option, however, and the work went instead to the Lagimodiere Road plant in Winnipeg.
Ziegler said the closure of Warman Road is both good and bad news. Maple Leaf’s investment of more than $120 million into the Brandon and Lagimodiere plants, will lead to a net gain of jobs in the province.
“Effectively the number of jobs in Manitoba will be slightly up. There are probably about 800 new jobs and 600 and some lost.”
The downside, he said, is the impact on individuals. Some workers at the Warman Road facility have been there for 25 years.
Ziegler said the union is helping those people find work at the Lagimodiere plant, find a new job or retire.
Once Maple Leaf expansion is complete, Ziegler estimates the company will employ close to 3,000 people at its Manitoba plants – 2,200 in Brandon and 800 in Winnipeg.