Prairie Packers Expand

When some eastern farmers noted that J.M. Schneider
Inc. planned a $40 million kill-and-chill plant in
Winnipeg, there was a sudden awareness of stirrings
across the three Prairie provinces, partly
triggered by the end of subsidies (the so-called
Crow rate) on grains moving into Quebec and the
Maritime provinces.
John Lauer, Schneider's agribusiness president,
told Farm & Country that his company's curing
operations stay in Kitchener, while the expanded
Winnipeg operation will concentrate largely on
fast-growing chill markets in the U.S. and Asia.
Scheduled for completion in 1997, it likely will be
situated near Schneider's existing operations in
St. Boniface.
Output calls for a 48,000-hog weekly kill, Lauer
says. This translates into a 2.5 million-a-year
throughput, an amount large enough to ensure plant
profitability in today's meat packing world. On the
other hand, it's more than the 2.1 million
slaughtered last year. So Manitoba must continue
expansion which in recent years has brought output
close to that of Alberta.
Likely, Manitoba could overtake Alberta this year
as feed companies match weaner producers to
finishers. Some companies offer joint partnerships
in building new barns housing 500 to 1,000 sows. In
at least one grouping, shares are sold in
surrounding communities, with the feed company
taking a 45 to 50 per cent equity.
Manitoba is attractive largely because the province
has Canada's lowest feed grain costs. As could be
expected, the major pig companies, such as PIC, NPD
and Cotswold are busy locking up this market for
their genetics, while independents such as
Ontario's Thames Bend Farms Ltd., with its Stein
pigs, has secured a sizeable chunk of the market.
All signs suggest that Manitoba will follow in
Quebec's footsteps and become highly integrated,
although with less commitment to SEW (segregated
early weaning). All barns built in recent years
were stocked with minimal disease stock, thus
ensuring high-health standards.
John Patience, who heads the independent Prairie
Swine Centre Inc. in Saskatoon made it clear that
SEW was not cost effective when producers already
have state-of-the-art barns where litters top 22
piglets a sow per year and finished pigs race to
market in under five months.
He told the Holland-based Pigs  magazine recently
that SEW... "fundamentally runs against the grain
of pork production in Western Canada which is to
eliminate and avoid disease rather than develop
systems to live with it."
While Manitoba barrels ahead, Saskatchewan aims for
more modest hog expansion over the present 1
million a year.
Westwards, Alberta is undergoing steady growth with
sights set on the 2.5 million a year mark,
following a move by the farmer-owned Fletchers and
Burns Foods Ltd. to pool resources and double
production capacity. Both the California and
Pacific Rim seek chilled pork and processed meats.
There are rumours that Manitoba aims to match
Ontario's output by the year 2000. This may be a
tall order but the 2.1 million head going through
slaughtering plants last year were supplemented by
the 220,000 live hogs exported, mostly to Ontario.
Feeding Schneider's new appetite will not be easy
but industry analysts feel it could be done by
keeping those exports at home.
At that point, will Ontario be supplying local
packer demands? Now, up to 20,000 weaners a week
head south across the border for better prices. -JP  

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