After
worries that there wouldn’t be enough packing plant capacity last fall, this
year there are new plants coming on stream, including the Clemens Food Group close
by at Coldwater, Michigan.
It will be
competing for hogs from Ontario, but will be facing aggressive bidding from
Quebec packers who pay the freight to their plants, says Patrick O’Neil,
marketing division manager for the Ontario Pork marketing board.
“It’s
unambiguously good news to have more processing capacity close to Ontario,”
O’Neil is quoted in an article by John Greig of Glacier FarmMedia.
The Clemens
Food Group, a vertically integrated pork production company, is building a
550,000-square-foot fresh pork processing plant which is about a four-hour
drive from Sarnia or Windsor, making it the closest U.S. plant.
Regulations
also allow more weight per axle, or hogs per trailer, in Michigan than in Ohio
or Indiana.
The plant
will begin buying hogs before end of the year.
Seaboard
Triumph Foods is building a new plant at Sioux City, Iowa and Prestage Farms says
it wants to build in Iowa, but so far hasn’t been able to nail down a site.
New
processing capacity won’t necessarily mean higher pork prices, O’Neil said.
“I still
think most packing plants, they’re not wanting to outbid their competitors and
pay more than the U.S. average price for hogs,” he told Greig.
The Clemens
family also produces hogs and will use much of the plant capacity. It also has
commitments from other producers.
“It’s going
to be a really good option close by and it’s a big company. To actually gauge
the impact, we’re going to have to see what happens,” said O’Neil.
“The
distance, especially if you have pigs in London or west, it’s significantly
closer to ship the pigs into Coldwater than into Quebec.”
