Transportation issues, hog supplies, protesters, labour costs: Senior management reports “business as usual” at processing plants in the three westernmost provinces.

Getting enough pigs for Britco plant at Langley, B.C. and finding enough people to work there are likely the most pressing of the ongoing issues, said Raymond Fehr, in charge of hog procurement for Donald’s Fine Foods. Britco is currently running at 80 per cent of capacity and certainly felt the impact during the dry summer of a record-breaking level of forest fires, said Fehr.

Smoke and fires caused delays along transportation routes from the prairies, increasing the levels of transportation stress for the pigs, he said.

Trucks had to be rerouted at times and, when the hogs arrived at the plant, they had not rested well on the trailers and were affected by the smoke encountered enroute. It is still difficult to find people willing to work in the Britco plant, which must compete with other West Coast employers who offer more pleasant working conditions, said Fehr, who has worked his way up from the production line. It’s hard work and it’s always either hot or cold, so people like to move on if they can find something easier, he said.

“You don’t grow up wanting to work in a slaughterhouse. It’s not easy work. I don’t mind it, but that’s where I grew up, is on the kill floor.”

While Britco is at a disadvantage in terms of labour supply and access to pigs, it maintains its viability through access to port and its ability to get fresh pork into containers and across the ocean more quickly than its inland competitors, said Fehr.

“Really, if you were to build a new plant, Langley would not be the first place on your list,” he said.

Missing a load or two has more impact at a smaller plant than at larger processors like Olymel’s facility in Red Deer, he said.

“At the moment, we’re running around 80 per cent (of capacity) – and that goes up and down. We’re still looking for . . . more hogs, more full-time contracts.

Britco targets a couple of containers per week to Japan and supplies local grocery chains including Overwaitea and Save-On Foods.

“Of course, the off cuts are exports – the stuff that no one in North America wants to eat. They want the stuff that we don’t want.”

Conditions affecting Britco do not exist at the company’s Thunder Creek plant in Moose Jaw, which continues to run as normal, said Fehr.

All plants, regardless of size and location, are dealing with various level of protesting from animal activists, with Britco and Thunder Creek being no exception, he said.

“We’ve seen a greater influx of protesters . . . at our plant here in Langley. We haven’t seen it at Thunder Creek, but that’s just a matter of time,” said Fehr.

Richard Vigneault, responsible for corporate communications at Olymel, said all the company’s pork plants experience some level of protest, but not normally in a manner that disrupts their day-to-day operations.

Vigneault said protestors are mainly vegans who want to stop humans from using animals in all forms, including food, companionship and sport. He said he likes to talk to the protesters and discuss their issues with them.

Olymel is now in the process of converting to carbon-dioxide stunning on its kill floor, which Vigneault described as a heavy but worthwhile investment in improving working conditions for staff, improving animal welfare and meeting consumer demands.

Sylvain Fournaise, vice-president of food safety and technical services for Olymel, said CO2 stunning is easier on staff and pigs, with the animals taken in small groups through a tunnel and into a chamber, where the gas is used to put the pigs to sleep. They are then put on a conveyor and bled out.

The pigs do not experience fear or trauma and it’s much quieter than electrical stunning, said Fournaise. The result for consumers is marked improvement in tenderness and juiciness as well as assurances that the animals are treated humanely, he said.

While there have been reports of problems in the system, Olymel has determined that a properly maintained and managed CO2 chamber will work as promised, said Fournaise.

He anticipates that the conversion will be completed in May of next year.

Progress is also being made on a $2-million expansion announced earlier, said Vigneault. Construction of a new sausage processing area was still in progress late in September, with the first testing of the plant scheduled for November, he said. Olymel currently employs 1,500 people and will add 100 more in the sausage plant.

Ralph Miller, procurement manager for the Maple Leaf plant at Lethbridge, said work there is progressing normally, minus a dogged protestor who is now under a court order to stay away from the property. Miller said the woman normally demonstrated on her own, but sometimes brought others along. He could not comment on details of her activities because of legal issues.

The plant is finding the hogs it needs to keep its lines running and cannot announce any pending changes, he said. •

— By Brenda Kossowan