The Saskatchewan Slaughter Plant Initiative said plans to build a one-million-head-per-year hog slaughter plant continue and the group expects to open the facility next fall.

"We know that the best time to start production is the fall, to open when the prices are right, so we're anxious to get going by fall 2009," Jim Ramsay, the group's chairman, told Resource News International.

That U.S. processors are balking at dealing with Canadian hogs under mandatory country-of-origin labeling also makes the timing right for such a facility. "COOL just makes our plant that much more attractive," Ramsay was quoted as saying.

The environmental and permit processes for construction of the C$100 million plant have begun. The plant will be financed primarily with equity, Ramsay said.

Plans for the new plant emerged after Maple Leaf Foods announced it would close its Saskatoon pork plant. (See Maple Leaf's plan to scrap Saskatoon plant could cost producers millions on Meatingplace.com, Oct. 16, 2006.)

By Tom Johnston on 11/21/2008 for Meatingplace.com