As Manitoba’s livestock industry grows, so does the number of dead animals and their byproducts from slaughter plants.
Last week, Canada’s largest rendering company announced it will expand its Winnipeg plant.
Rothsay will spend $9 million on its rendering plant in the province to increase capacity by more than half, hire nine new employees and add new environmental equipment.
The plant is now running at full capacity, said president Darryl Robinson, in a phone interview from company headquarters in Dundas, Ont. The added capacity should be ready by the end of the year.
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Robinson said the company realized more than a year ago it would need to expand to handle the “phenomenal” growth in livestock production and processing in the province.
Less than three years ago, the company doubled the size of its Winnipeg plant, adding a new cooker and upgrading its plant. At the same time it started a free, on-farm pickup service of dead livestock.
Robinson would not discuss volumes or market share, but said during the past couple of years, the plant has increased its volume of hogs by 50 percent, poultry by 20 percent, and beef by six percent, mirroring growth in those industries.
The company also renders byproducts from all major poultry, beef and pork processors in the province, he said.
Rothsay runs rendering plants in Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. The company is owned by Maple Leaf Foods.
