The mayor of Moose Jaw is confident the pending reopening of the idled Moose Jaw Packers pork processing facility will provide a much needed boost for city, for Saskatchewan’s pork producers and for the provincial economy.
In May Langley, B.C. based Donald’s Fine Foods completed the purchase of the Moose Jaw Pork Packers pork processing plant which had been closed since September 2006, had been taken over by the city in lieu of unpaid taxes and put up for sale.
Renovations are underway now and city officials anticipate the facility will be back in operation in early 2011.
Moose Jaw mayor Glenn Hagel notes Donald’s Fine Food is a well established company with a proven track record for quality and established markets which is key to the future of this plant.
-Often times in our part of the world we’re inclined to think that things going on on the other side of the world don’t have a lot to do with us but in this case one of the primary market areas is China.
As the middle class wealth is growing in China, what that really means is there is a growing demand for the specialty cuts that are particularly attractive there and that will be a feature of the products that will be turned out of the Moose Jaw plant here.
What you have is an expansion by Donald’s Fine Foods of their operation, not with the hopes of being able to find a market that will be interested in the product that they’re producing, but in actually being able to respond to the market that is already there and wanting to have increased product.
It’s really that sense of their operation that gives me a strong sense of optimism about the longevity and the future and I have no reason to believe that they’re going to do anything but succeed while they’re here.
Hagel says it’s always an advantage an to be sending value added products out of the province and the pending re-opening the processing plant reinforces that that will continue to be done.
Source: Farmscape.Ca
