The spinoffs from Maple Leaf’s announcement to build a $112 million hog processing plant in Brandon are already starting to swirl.
Last month, officials from Vall Corporation, a Spanish livestock investment company, toured southwestern Manitoba to check out potential sites for a proposal that could inject $100 million into the region.
“Considering we hardly have anything here, it would be astronomical,” said Scott Day, the agriculture representative for Boissevain, Man.
The plan includes a feed mill and 24,000 sows split into five farrowing barns that would run along the highway between Killarney and Deloraine.
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Company officials said the Maple Leaf development was only one of the factors making southwestern Manitoba so attractive, Day said.
“Our landscape, with wide open spaces with good quality soil was another reason and then low feed grain prices.”
Ken Carter, who runs Vall Corporation’s United States’ operations from Texhoma, Oklahoma, and who would head up its expansion into Manitoba, could not be reached.
Day said Japanese investors are also looking at setting up hog barns in the area and Smithfield, the company buying out Schneiders Corp., will likely do the same.
