In 2017, HyLife of La Broquerie, MB announced plans to build a substantial new feed mill in Killarney, MB. Company President Claude Vielfaure said it will be identical to their original feed mill west of Steinbach, MB and will accommodate their growth plans.

In the fall of 2016, HyLife announced a $125 million investment and expansion of the company’s Neepawa processing plant. Part of that was a feed mill at Killarney and several finishing barns.

“This feed mill is going to be a 250,000 tonne-a-year feed mill so it’s going to feed a lot of pigs and we already have a lot of pigs in the area,” said Vielfaure. “We want to increase hog production to the point where we can operate double shifts at the Neepawa processing plant.

We’re working with government and municipalities to find the right sites conducive to building finishing barns.”

Fast forward to December 2017 when Vielfaure said they have almost finished the processing plant, completed two finishing barns and nearly finished the feed mill at Killarney.

“The plant is going well on schedule, and we’re looking at some time in the springtime of starting up the new cut floor for the future, yeah. It’ll be awesome,” said Vielfaure. “We’re adding about 100,000 square feet to the whole plant. A big part of that is a new cut floor, so we’re going to be closing down our old cut floor and repurposing it to other stuff, so we’re going to have a brand new cut floor, hopefully, operation sometime in April or May.”

Vielfaure said they are processing about 6,800 hogs per day on a five day week and with the new expansion, the goal is to get to 7,500 per day or just under 2 million pigs a year. This year that number is closer to 1.7 million. “Once we finish this expansion, we are going to be world-class and compete with anybody,” he said.

“Well, it’s about the quality of the meat. It’s about shelf life. It’s about the technology we’re going to be using. All of that, we’ll be world-class where we’ll be right up front compared to most other competitors. We’ve had a strong focus in Japan, and have grown the market share there very well over the years. The demand is there for more, and we are sold out, so we’re finding ways of getting more meat. Also, to sell in Japan, your quality has to be second to none, so we’ve focused on that and a little bit the reason we’re making such a big investment in Neepawa is to continue to be leading edge on everything.”

“We’ve worked through the numbers over the last year, and as the construction is going to end and we’re going to increase, we have our hogs lined up for it. The hogs come from anywhere in Manitoba, and some from Saskatchewan,” said Vielfaure. He said at Killarney, MB that feed mill is well on its way. It’s precisely the same size and the same feed mill as they built in the Southeast of Manitoba a year and a half ago.

Right now, it’s scheduled to open sometime in early fall or late summer next year. HyLife has built two 10,000 head finishing sites and pigs are going in the barns very soon, and then the open house in November, about the potential of maybe making more pig sites. Vielfaure said, “We want to grow, yes. That’s part of the feed mill, it’s in a location, so obviously we want to grow around the feed mill for transportation and feed costs, makes a lot of sense, so we continue to look for potential sites that we could build and get more pigs from.” The HyLife president said the attempt by the Westman Opportunities Leadership Group’s plan to attract investment to build a world-class soybean processing plant is excellent.

“We use a lot of soybeans, and it’ll increase, obviously, how much soybeans farmers produce soybean is grown, so we think it’s going to be a positive thing.” •

— By Harry Siemens