A labour shortage has put construction of a slaughter plant to support Natural Valley Farms’ processing facility well behind schedule.
The company had hoped the Neudorf, Sask., plant would be open this fall, but livestock manager Ken Piller said it will now be completed this winter.
The target date for full production capacity is February or March 2006.
“Some contractors had to back out at the last minute because of labour,” Piller said from the company’s processing facility at Wolseley, Sask.
Wet weather was another factor.
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“We’re getting through,” Piller said. “We’ve got all the groundwork in and the lagoons done.”
He hoped to pour concrete for the basement last week.
“We were pushing hard to get a roof on this thing before November. Now it looks like December.”
Meanwhile, the company announced Oct. 6 the addition of two employees including a new general manager.
Eric Kasko takes over from interim general manager David White who will stay on as a consultant.
Kasko has a background in agricultural economics and brings knowledge of beef slaughter and fabrication, pork fabrication and meat processing from his work at major companies including Cargill.
Dan McKenna, the former plant manager of Northwest Foods Inc. in Edmonton, has been hired as the processing plant manager.
Piller said processing has doubled in the last couple of weeks. The plant is processing about 50 head a day. It has capacity to do 250.
