HyLife has announced big plans to expand its hog processing plant in Neepawa and to build more finishing barns. The La Broquerie-based firm is planning to spend $125 million dollars on these projects. Company President Claude Vielfaure outlines what is planned at Neepawa.
"We want to re-invest in Neepawa, in our plant, to make it much bigger, improve our processes, our technology, our innovation at the plant to continue to make a great product and to continue to improve it. We're going to do the construction in stages but it will be happening in the next two years."
Vielfaure says HyLife also plans to implement a double shift at the plant and that will require more feeder barns to make sure they have a sufficient supply of hogs.
"We have a lot of hogs being born in Manitoba that are being sent to the U.S. so we expect to add some finishing barns to keep those pigs in Manitoba and balance our system."
Vielfaure says new finishing barns will be built in western Manitoba although no specific locations have yet been determined. He adds this will also probably require the company to construct a feed mill in that part of the province.
The expansion is expected to create 165 new jobs which would bring the HyLife workforce to about 2,000 people. Vielfaure notes a lot of this growth is due to the company's success in the Japanese and Chinese markets.
"HyLife’s investment into growing our Japanese and Chinese markets has been very rewarding and is sending the signal that we can do more. This new investment in Manitoba will mean not only more jobs across the province but a greater demand
for value-added pork thanks to our integrated system and our great primary producer partners."
HyLife has become Canada’s number one fresh chilled pork exporter to Japan, returning $200 million worth of sales from the Japanese market annually. Vielfaure notes HyLife recently opened a restaurant in the trendy Daikanyama district of Tokyo to further highlight the quality and taste profile that HyLife pork delivers.
"HyLife has taken that unique Japanese consumer demand for its domestic pork and worked tirelessly to recreate this taste profile at home in our integrated production and processing system. The result has been a solid and growing base of Japanese consumers seeking to buy HyLife’s premium fresh chilled pork products, which we grow and process right here in Manitoba."
Source : Portageonline