Prairie hog producers may soon have a new avenue for selling their sows.
Donald’s Fine Foods has announced plans to undertake a feasibility study to determine the viability of converting the former beef plant in Moose Jaw, SK. into a sow processing facility.
The facility, if it moves forward would fill something of a void for the hog sector on the Canadian Prairies, providing a sow kill plant of significant scale.
Neil Ketilson, Industry Relations Manager with Donald’s Fine Foods in a release stated that it is his understanding “there are very few sow plants in Canada of any large size,” adding as a result “80 per cent in Canada” head to the United States to be killed and processed.”
The study will consider the financial feasibility, plus the overall support from producers, the public and government for moving forward with the plant conversion to provide a sow processing facility serving Western Canadian hog producers.
Ketilson noted they have already purchased the plant, so the study will focus on the viability to convert the plant.
“We think there are a number of benefits to be derived from it (the plant),” he said, adding the added processing capacity could be a significant benefit for the Western Canadian pork industry.
With a Moose Jaw sow processing plant, Western Canadian producers could benefit from greater profitability for sows due to reduced transport costs, greater ability to deliver direct, increased biosecurity and the alleviation of border closure risks.
Florian Possberg, a partner in Polar Pork in Saskatchewan said biosecurity is certainly a concern and a plant in Canada would help address some of that concern.
“It would take out some of the border risk,” he said, noting that risk includes transportation time, and the potential to carry disease across the border from the U.S. on return trips.
“One thing we’re trying to build into our system is biosecurity,” continued Possberg, adding that security is harder to control when shipping sows. “The fewer sows going south the less traffic,” he noted, adding that is a positive for the industry in Western Canada.
“It’s a local solution to reduce biological risk,” he said.
Ketilson said there is an obvious cost to producers when shipping sows down to the United States.

“A local facility would reduce that (cost) significantly,” he said, adding “… It’s an opportunity for them (producers) to save some freight and put some money in their pockets.”
Based on the numbers the return to producers could be notable.
Ketilson said it is estimated some 200,000 sows are marketed from Western Canada annually.
“Right now the majority go into the United States for processing. That’s the potential number of sows that could come through our plant,” he said.
While Ketilson admitted “we won’t get all of them,” adding logistically Manitoba sows will likely still head south, there are 100,000 sows marketed in Alberta and Saskatchewan that reasonably can be processed in Moose Jaw.
Once processed the majority of sow meat goes into making sausage, said Ketilson, adding they see a market for the meat domestically, in the U.S. and for foreign export.
For Moose Jaw there is the creation of jobs too. The plant has been shut down for about a decade, when it was last used to process beef.
“It’s been idle since then,” offered Ketilson.
The plant need upgrades based on a decade of mothballing, and conversions from processing beef to processing sows.
“We expect most of the equipment in there will need to be changed,” said Ketilson.
Possberg said he too would expect some of the plant infrastructure to be useable for sows, adding while it may not have been competitive when operational as a beef processor, there is no reason it can’t be a good market for Prairie sows.
“It just took an entrepreneur that could fit the pieces together and then make the jump and go for it,” he said.
The installation of equipment will be the biggest step in the process.
“Most of the equipment isn’t sitting on a shelf somewhere,” said Ketilson, adding it will need to be ordered and once on-site, it will be installed, a process that puts the plant opening “in the spring of next year (2021), although that’s yet to be determined too.
Ketilson said all the plans are tentative as they work through the feasibility study, although he is optimistic. He said producer reaction “has been extremely positive” as news of the potential plant got out, and “we think it’s a win-win for everybody.”
Once changes are made the resulting plant would be good for the local economy.
It is expected the sow plant will employ around 100 people.
The sow processing facility would complement the Thunder Creek Pork market hog processing operation. Thunder Creek Pork will continue to operate independently. •
— By Calvin Daniels