For Sale' sign on Maple Leaf good news

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

by BETTER FARMING STAFF

It’s all good, says Wilma Jeffray, chair of the Ontario pork board, about Maple Leaf Foods announcement yesterday that was putting the company’s Burlington plant back on the sales block.
 
Maple Leaf cited improved economic conditions and credit markets as it re-launched a formal sales process for its Burlington pork plant.

A sale “is our preferred happening for the plant,” says Jeffray. When chief executive officer Michael McCain announced the company was retrenching its pork production in Western Canada in October, 2006, he said the Burlington plant, located on valuable urban land, would be closed if no buyer could be found and producers faced a dismal future.

That plan was put on hold last April when Maple Leaf announced the plant was being taken off the market in the depths of a world wide economic crisis.

A press release from Maple Leaf issued yesterday describes the 365,000 square foot Burlington plant as “one of the largest and most efficient pork processing facilities in Canada . Together with its management and sales team it is a profitable business with a highly skilled workforce.”

Pork production is ramping down in Ontario as producers are forced out by poor prices or take a government buyout. The production decline is taking place as predicted, Jeffray says and all pork processors are adjusting to “a smaller kill. They made some changes to the work force.” BF