New Zealand plants

[cowman]

On a Calgary radio station yesterday they had a little blurb about how this professor at the U of S had come out saying Canada needs to go to a system of small farmer owned packing plants, like they apparently do in New Zealand. He wasn't long on details but he claimed these small plants were 30% more efficient than the large American packing houses! Now that sort of goes against the gospel of big is better, that has been preached by all our experts for the last thirty years or so?
Value chain do you know anything about these New Zealand type plants? It seems this guy in Saskatoon is saying everything you've been saying! You might want to check him out? I never caught his last name but his first name was Barry.

[ValueChainFX]

New Zealand has been far ahead of most of us in this area. They have an extensive system of farmer owner systems and cooperatives. I recently had two friends that worked in this system and know several farmers from there that swear by it! We have a long way to go but are part of the model we are working on now!

[redcountry]

Here on the east coast of canada
we have a farmer owned plant under construction to open fall of 2004
This plant will kill only for share owners of the co-op
The product (Atlantic tender beef clasic) a famer owned brand, will be sold through the atlantic co-op grocery chain .
we had a kill plant that was locally owned, it sold out to Maple Leaf foods and they shut down the beef kill, they were only interrested in hogs.
That left us trucking our beef 1200 miles to ontario, the shrink, dead animals, dark cutters and cost was putting us out even before BSE.
This time next year we will either have a plant or a $15m debt
Wish us luck

[gwf]

Redcountry: What kind of a plant do you get for $15 mil. How was it, or is it being financed? It would be very interesting to know a little bit about the project.

[ValueChainFX]

redcountry I wish you all the best, I would love to keep in touch with you folks there and would be very interested in sharing information. Feel free to drop me a line at valuechain@telus.net

[cowman]

It seems to me redcountry is describing what is basically a new gen co-op? So why don't we have one here in Alberta/Sask./Man.? I thought we were supposed to be the land of opportunity out here?
I hope it works out for them and I suspect it probably will, as long as they can keep pirates like Cargill and IBP from breaking the plant. And have no doubt they will try! They will flood your area with cheap meat and undersell you at a loss. This has been their practice just about everywhere. They don't like any competition to the meat oligarchy!

[Bruce14]

Has anyone heard what is happening with the plant in the Q'Qppelle (Sk.) area that was announced last fall?

[moffat]

seen a presentation on the Qu'appelle plant in mid January. The investors say construction to start in May.Sounds like they have all the permits and enviromental work done. I guess we'll see. Sounds good 4-5 thousand beef and 9000 hogs per week.About 350 jobs,maybe all us beef guys will be able to get a job yet.

[Bruce14]

Sorry that's Qu'Appelle, Sk.

Just heard on the news that construction will start this spring and it will handle both hogs and cattle with 5000 head of cattle being processed each week. That's a start.

[ValueChainFX]

Cowman the Alberta Value Chain Cooperative will be holding a meeting in Red probably within the next 4 weeks. I'll keep you posted on meetings, times and places. My understanding is they are looking at a May start for the building. (not sure if that is still the date)