Saskatoon’s new hamburger plant has city developers drooling.
Business promoters feel it will be the nucleus of a thriving food park
in the city.
“This becomes almost like an anchor tenant in a mall,” said Dale
Botting, chief executive officer of the Saskatoon Regional Economic
Development Authority.
The $35 million Centennial Foods plant is the first of what Botting
sees as a frozen food processing cluster located on 200 acres of land
in the city’s north end.
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“I look out there and see a food park coming to life in my mind. I can
visualize it and it’s our job to see now if we can target prospects and
make it happen,” he said during the Jan. 16 opening of the hamburger
facility.
Ron Kovitz, chief executive officer of Centennial Foods, said the plant
will employ 50 people when it is officially “fired up” on Jan. 28. At
full capacity it will employ 190 people. That is expected to happen
within the next few years.
Centennial is an Alberta-based company that processes red meat and
seafood into products for the food service and food retail industries.
It has two processing plants in Calgary and a third in Vancouver.
The Saskatoon facility will take on the work now done at one of the
Calgary plants, which consists of grinding frozen meat and fresh trim
into quick frozen hamburger patties.
Saskatchewan premier Lorne Calvert, who attended the opening ceremony,
couldn’t conceal his glee about a Calgary company setting up shop in
Saskatoon.
“It pleases the premier of Saskatchewan to be welcoming new jobs coming
from Alberta,” he said with a grin.
Significant provincial government investment in the project encouraged
Centennial to locate the plant in Saskatchewan.
Crown Investments Corp. minister Maynard Sonntag said the province put
up $20 million to help build and equip the plant.
He agreed with Botting that this could be the first step in a food
processing park.
“Things like this tend to snowball if you make the right investment and
I believe we have,” said the minister.
“I can’t go into too much detail but we’re already talking about a
number of other opportunities as a result of this.”
Sonntag said the plant will help the Saskatchewan cattle industry.
“It means that probably more beef can be produced here.”
Tracey Edge, general manager of the Saskatchewan Stockgrowers
Association, said the cattle industry has been lobbying hard for an
expanded processing industry. She said the Centennial plant is a
positive development and will “likely be a factor” in increasing the
provincial herd.
Centennial is one of the largest hamburger patty manufacturers in
Canada. The company also makes breaded, battered, deep-fried and
oven-cooked meat and seafood.
Its eight western Canadian distribution plants send product to fast
food retailers such as Dairy Queen and A&W and to grocery chains like
Federated Co-op, Superstore, Loblaws, Canada Safeway and Kroger in the
United States.
Centennial also hopes to develop markets in southeast Asian
destinations like Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Kovitz said the 9,000 sq. metre Saskatoon facility is the first phase
of the project. The plant is situated on 15 acres of land, but
Centennial has access to another 18 acres of adjacent property.
The plant will source beef from Western Canada, Australia and New
Zealand.
