| Farm-Scape for May 29, 2000 (Episode 438)
The Head of Maple Leaf Foods describes the construction and start up of the company's new state of the art Brandon hog kill and cut facility as a tremendous accomplishment.
Maple Leaf officially opened it's 140 million dollar Brandon pork plant Friday.
The new facility was built to world class standards to compete with the best in the world and boasts a line speed of 1250 hogs per hour totaling 45 thousand hogs per week on a single shift. The plant currently employs 1150 people in a single shift operation and that will rise 22 hundred when the facility adds it's second shift and reaches full capacity.
Maple President and CEO Michael McCain says a great deal has been accomplished in a very short period of time.
Clip-Michael McCain-Maple Leaf
On December 2, 1997 we officially announced this facility and the construction of this plant and that's only 2.5 years ago.
Two and a half years ago from this date that we announced that we were going forward and you look at what's transpired in that short period of time, constructing a 140 million dollar asset, ranging the supply, ranging the customers, hiring and training 11 hundred and 50 people...just in my view an extraordinary achievement.
When this plant reaches it's world class target levels that it's capable of, we genuinely believe that the Brandon facility will be the center of attention in the pork industry worldwide and will serve very well the interests of Canada, the interests of Manitoba, the citizens of Manitoba, the farmers of Western Canada and Brandon area, the employees in this facility and the community and certainly the shareholders of Maple Leaf.
McCain points out the Brandon facility is singularly the largest investment Maple Leaf has ever made and equally important the largest investment in Canadian history in pork processing.
For Farm-Scape...I'm Bruce Cochrane. |