WINNIPEG – After enduring a prolonged stretch of poor prices, one of Canada’s largest producers and exporters of weanling pigs has gone into receivership, industry sources said last week.
Premium Pork Canada Inc. posted notice in the London Free Press that its operations were being run by receivers, said Curtiss Littlejohn, vice-chair of Ontario Pork, a hog marketing agency in the province where the company had most of its barns.
“The last 21/2 years have been very tough on the hog industry,” Littlejohn said, noting prices sagged below costs until rebounding about eight months ago.
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“We always think that people or businesses choose to not drive on when the prices are low, when in reality, the after-effects of low pricing comes in a little later down the line.”
Officials from Premium Pork Canada did not return calls.
The company had 40,000 sows and produced 300,000 weanling pigs per year in 18 barns in Ontario and Manitoba, according to Ontario industry statistics.
The piglets were sold to finishing barns in Iowa and Indiana run by Prairie States Management, which contracted them to Tyson Foods Inc., the weekly Ontario Farmer newspaper reported.
Five receivers are involved in sorting out the operations, it said.
The London Free Press reported that KPMG had been appointed receiver for the central part of the company. The receiver is continuing Premium Pork’s operations and plans to sell it, Richard Morowetz, a partner with KPMG, told the newspaper.
“It’s sort of business as usual, as much as it can be,” Morowetz said in the article. “The piglets are being shipped out.”
A KPMG spokesperson declined comment, and said the company does not routinely comment on clients’ cases.
In the short term, Ontario’s hog marketing agency expects little impact on its operations from the company’s decline, Littlejohn said. The agency will wait to see whether more of its hogs stay in Ontario, which could strain slaughter capacity, he said.
Manitoba’s pork industry is also waiting and watching, said Ted Muir, general manager of the Manitoba Pork Council.
