Langley, B.C. based Donald’s Fine Foods is set to begin renovations and hopes to have its recently acquired pork processing facility in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan in operation by the end of the year.
In May Donald’s Fine Foods completed the purchase of the Moose Jaw Pork Packers pork processing plant which had been sitting idle since September 2006.
Donald’s runs a 15 hundred head per day pork slaughter fabrication facility at Langley and a distribution and further processing facility at Richmond and distributes products domestically and internationally predominantly to Asia.
Senior vice-president Tony Martinez says Donald’s existing capacity had become maxed out, the Moose Jaw plant was available for purchase and officials jumped at the opportunity to expand.
We just got possession approximately a week ago and so now we begin the process of renovating the facility and getting it ready for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to obtain federal status and all of those good things.
That’s really where we’re at now, we’re just getting into talking to contractors and getting renovations lined up and cleaning up the facility and all those good things.
There’s everything from roof repairs to re-doing inside of the walls to installing so cryovac equipment to ensure we can ship fresh product out of that facility.
Our anticipation is that it’s going to take approximately a good five months.
If everything lines up we’ll hopefully be running a hog through there before the year’s up.
Martinez says there’s a large hog supply in Saskatchewan which offers great potential for the company and, although Donald’s will be a smaller player, it will be able to offer producers a freight advantage which will be a good option for them.
Source: Farmscape.Ca
