Ottawa, province tab $6M for 19 Manitoba food-sector firms

BRANDON — The Maple Leaf Foods plant in Brandon will seek to upgrade its equipment and increase efficiency after the Manitoba government announced $6 million in funding for processing facilities across the province.

“It is uncertain times. We need strong farms and we need good, strong food processors,” Agriculture Minister Ron Kostyshyn said at a news conference on Wednesday.

The $6 million will be split between 19 companies — including meat processing, agriculture, dairy and brewing — with more than $1 million going to Maple Leaf and $2.5 million to the McCain Foods production plant in Carberry.

The federal government is covering 60 per cent of the funding, with the province putting in the rest, Kostyshyn said.

“The funding helps them buy equipment and invest in new technologies,” the NDP MLA for Dauphin said. “We’re here to help them grow and be competitive as we find new and emerging markets around the world.”

Kostyshyn said the aim is to keep Manitoba connected in interprovincial trade, as tariffs from the United States and China make international trade more difficult.

“The reality is starting to set in … we need to become creative in our own opportunities of building from start to finish a finished product and marketing throughout the world and through Canada and Manitoba.”

Kathleen Sullivan, Maple Leaf Foods vice-president of government and industry relations, said the upgrade will not only help the Brandon plant but the entire provincial economy.

“It’s more product coming out that can be sold and it also means that more hogs come into the plant,” she said. “That means we need to grow more hogs here in Manitoba.

“I think it’s clear to everyone in the industry that we need to be ensuring we have maximum productivity, we are utilizing our capacity,” Sullivan said. “We have product to sell to Canadians, but also to other countries around the world.”

She said the money Maple Leaf receives will be spent on upgrading split saws, which cut pig carcasses, to improve speed, efficiency and limit waste.

Rob Ackerblade, director of operations for Canada Packers Inc., which shares the Maple Leaf building in Brandon, said the plant processes about 16,000 pigs per day.

He said the company is “very thankful” for the support of both levels of government. “The investment you’re announcing today will help us modernize the facility with state-of-the-art equipment that will help us improve reliability, efficiency and production quality.”

Municipal and Northern Relations Minister Glen Simard said combating foreign tariffs by helping local businesses is important.

“We need to make sure that as we create these new opportunities, we need to create more capacity,” said Simard (Brandon East). “We need to make sure that as new markets emerge that rural Manitobans benefit and that agricultural producers benefit.”

He said the 19 companies — some of which are small and family-owned — are an important part of Manitoba’s ag sector. “They support jobs in their communities, help support jobs for agricultural producers who supply them to Manitoba and the world.”

The $2.5 million for McCain Foods’ Carberry plant will be used to install new freezers and refrigeration equipment, increasing potato processing capacity by 12 per cent, according to a government handout.

— Brandon Sun