HyLife, a Manitoba integrated pork processor headquartered in La Broquerie, with business around the world, earlier this year held an open house to announce the completion of its pork processing facility expansion and upgrade project. The bulk of its investment focuses on the modernization of the integrated pork processing plant in Neepawa, MB.

On July 5, HyLife opened the brand new feed mill, the second one in Manitoba, a replica of the what began several years ago at Randolph.

Company president Claude Vielfaure said the key to not only building a feed mill in the Killarney area but several new hog barns is the support they’ve received from the area.

“We established ourselves here many, many years ago by purchasing some barns, and then leasing some finishing barns from producers,” said Vielfaure. “The reception is always good, and they’ve had faith in us, and supported us, and so for us, it was just a perfect area, Western Manitoba, to build a feed mill, and build some barns, and raise some pigs. And it’s close enough to Neepawa, which makes sense, transportation-wise, for our hogs, so that whole combination was just a perfect fit.”

He said there is nothing extraordinary about the HyLife farm but what they raise on the farm is what matters. That’s why they need the specialized feed mills to provide the special feeding programs used to increase the pigs.

“We do things to get the highest quality pork that we can get. And part of that is a facility that can make that quality feed exactly the way we want it so that our customers and our producers get the best pork possible. And then we sell that internationally, all over the world,” said Vielfaure. “It’s a combination of things, as far as feeding the right ingredients to get the right colour of fat, the right firmness of fat, the right taste, the right genetics of pigs to have the right marbling. All of that is so important in the program, to be able to produce pork that would be considered one of the best, if not the best in the world.”

Different countries have different requests He said it starts first by selling the number one quality, and then the requests include different cuts or just cut a different way. “That’s why we invested in our plant in Neepawa and spent a lot of money on machinery and technology that can meet those specs of different customers. Japan has different cuts than Canada, then Korea, then China. So it’s all different, and they all have different specs, but now we can do exactly what they need and want.”

Employees are vital to making this happen

Vielfaure said it starts with their employees and always has since they started the company in the early ’80s, with the Vielfaure brothers, and then merging with Don Janzen in 1994 and creating HyLife.

“The growth of our company is all because of our employees, it’s fantastic, and they’re an integral part,” he said. “It was a cultural thing and based in rural Manitoba, and so we hire rural people that are working in the area where our barns are. They commit to their community, and they want to make it better.”

When there aren’t enough local people, they bring in some immigrants, focusing a lot on the Philippines, and the Filipino people integrate so well into the community becoming part of it making for a perfect balance of everything.

Both the federal and provincial governments also play an essential role. Under the current PC government in Manitoba relaxing the building regulations, HyLife could start rebuilding some barns and adding to their infrastructure and this mill wouldn’t have happened otherwise, he said.

The federal government has also helped on the immigration side; such a critical component for them because they create the jobs in rural areas but there aren’t enough people for the amount of growth of the company, so the government has helped them tremendously through that process. •

— By Harry Siemens