Donald's Fine Food, the owner/operator of Thunder Creek Pork in Moose Jaw, announced it is undertaking a study to determine the viability of converting the XL Beef plant in Moose Jaw into a sow processing facility.
The company expects the study to take six to eight weeks. That plant has been closed for about 10 years.
In a press release, the company says producers export over 80 per cent of their cull sows to the United States for processing, so the new plant would significantly benefit the Western Canadian pork industry.
"Today's announcement is the first step toward a strategic investment to meet the demand for domestic sow processing," Allan Leung, CEO, Donald's Fine Foods, said in a press release. "We want to create more opportunities for pork producers and support the forecasted need for domestic sow processing capacity."
Neil Ketilson, Industry Relations Manager for Donald's Fine Foods said they chose Moose Jaw because the infrastructure is already there.
"You know and to rebuild something like that for the purpose of sows would really be uneconomical unless you had a lot of the infrastructure in place."
Donald's Fine Foods is publically reaching out to producers and governments to see if there is a use for a sow processing plant in the province.
Thunder Creek Pork will continue to operate on South Hill independently from the sow plant.
Donald's Fine Foods said it expects the plant will create up to 100 new jobs in our city.
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