The future of Moose Jaw Pork Packers Ltd. could be decided this week.
Greg Tanner, an employee who is also an elected director of the company, said Jan. 15 that new investors made an offer for the closed plant Dec. 13.
“We’ve got to get some answers this week,” he said.
If a deal is to proceed, the plant wouldn’t immediately reopen because it would take 30 to 60 days to finalize everything, he said.
And if a deal isn’t struck, Tanner said another proposal is waiting in the wings.
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He declined to provide any information about the potential new investors, but he did say employees are among them.
Moose Jaw Pork Packers opened briefly last June after its predecessor, Worldwide Pork, had been closed for more than a year and put 270 people out of work.
A business plan developed under court protection resulted in the new company. Shareholders included a labour-sponsored venture capital corporation formed by about 100 employees, former creditors, private investors and the South Central Community Futures Corp.
However, the plan didn’t work and the plant closed Aug. 31.
Tanner said there wasn’t enough money involved. At the time, the investment to reopen the facility was $3 million.
However, half of that came from the provincial government for debtor-in-possession financing. Tanner said $1.4 million went to cover the year of court proceedings.
“Only $102,000 came to operations,” Tanner said. “How could they think that $102,000 would make a difference?”
The remainder also went into operations but it wasn’t enough to sustain the plant when sales weren’t going well.
Tanner said employees didn’t have enough say about marketing even though many of them had worked at the plant for years and knew the business better than the new management. They are worried the company will be forced into bankruptcy and someone will pick it up for far less than it’s worth.
“We want to clean up the debt and make sure people are paid,” he said.
The company owes money to suppliers and producers.
A double shift could kill 600,000 hogs in Moose Jaw each year, and the province is only slaughtering one million in total, Tanner said.
There is room in the market. For example, the plant could kill cull sows but only about 50 people would have jobs.
Tanner said a lot of employees have given up and moved on.
“I can’t blame them,” he said.
“It’ll open some day, under somebody’s terms.”
