Farmscape for November 8, 2023
| Full Interview 7:29 | Listen  |
A new cull sow processing facility in Moose Jaw is expected to generate economic spin off for the city and the province for the next 30 to 40 years. North 49 Foods is ramping up operations at its new state-of-the-art sow processing facility at Moose Jaw.
The federally inspected plant was built on the site of the former XL beef plant and has the capacity to process up to 225 thousand sows annually. North 49 Foods, industry relations manager Neil Ketilson says, it’s a win-win and the project has received tremendous support from producers across western Canada and industry leaders as well.
Quote-Neil Ketilson-North 49 Foods:
We anticipate the plant will open up with around 80 people. We already have 42 people that are here, new Canadians, and they’ve been in the plant starting to do some of the training, making sure they’re familiar with the plant and we will have more come each and every month for the next few months. We anticipate to add to that over the coming year so that, in a year or so, we hope to be up to 200 people and have enough product flowing through that facility to make it worthwhile. So, it brings a tremendous amount of income to the city, a lot of new people there. Everybody would like to grow the province and this is certainly one opportunity to do it.
That plant is absolutely brand new now and we anticipate that will be here for the next 30 to 40 years. It’s steady full-time income that will be provided to the people that work there, their families and all the infrastructure around them.
I think we appreciate that the spinoffs are great. For every dollar that is earned there is multiple dollars that are spent time and time again by different things. It’s excellent for the city as well as the province.
Ketilson says an effort will be made to harvest the primal cuts but a lot of the meat will be ground and, for the short term at least, sausage will be the main product. He says there’s a lot of demand and inquiries are coming in from both domestic and international customers.
For more visit Farmscape.Ca. Bruce Cochrane.
*Farmscape is produced on behalf of North America’s pork producers
