The City of Winkler will soon be home to one of the country's premier pork processing facilities.
A joint venture between Progressive Group, which owns Winkler Meats, and United States-based Johnsonville Sausage was announced Monday in Winkler.
Both companies will be investing 50 percent of the expansion cost.
"We were looking at Manitoba for a couple of different reasons," said Michael Stayer Suprick, CEO of Johnsonville Holdings. "One, Winkler was obviously here, but two, the government just stepped in, and both in Winkler and Manitoba and really made things happen so fast. I'm still amazed today at how quickly we were able to get wastewater and water and the Government on our side to make things move forward."
Manitoba Ag Minister Derek Johnson was on hand as well to announce a $2.4 million investment over two years for the project. The money will flow through the Provincial and Federal government's Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (S-CAP) Capital Infrastructure and Investments program.
"Our granting from the Province of Manitoba and Canada through the Sustainable Canadian Agriculture partnership is for processing of existing food that's here in Manitoba. So we're increasing our capacity in Manitoba rather than shipping the product out of the province to be processed," explained Minister Johnson. "So our focus through S-CAP is to create those jobs here, process it here, and come up with the final product, and we have that value added in the Province of Manitoba."
The Manitoba government has approved over $7.8 million in loan financing and tax rebates, in addition to the Sustainable CAP contribution. Government funding will go toward new harvesting and processing equipment and a high-capacity packaging line.
The $52.8 million capital project will increase the volume of harvesting and processing at the plant - advancing value-added opportunities within Manitoba. It will also enhance the resiliency and benefits of the existing supply chain, divert millions of kilograms of live animals from export to the United States, and expand the company's contribution to Manitoba's GDP by five times, to $23 million per year.
Jeff Senebald, President of Winkler Meats, said one of the really good synergies with this capital project in Winkler, is the location. "The sow herd is here as well. There are about 338,000 sows right here in Manitoba, and our neighbour Saskatchewan is probably about 120,000 sows. So location-wise what we're doing really made sense in Manitoba."
Winkler Mayor Henry Siemens says anytime a business makes a commitment to grow in your community, it's exciting.
"They allowed us to plan together with them in terms of infrastructure capacity that needed to be upgraded," said Siemens. "We already had both water and wastewater on our agenda, we were working towards that. That opportunity to partner with Winkler Meats in this expansion, and their entering into an industrial service agreement with us, meaning they're going to financially contribute to both the capital and the ongoing operational cost of both of these, allowed us to accelerate that. It allowed us to consider other potential opportunities that may be there."
"Manitoba's hog sector is thrilled by this new investment in value-added processing right here at home, a shining example of Manitoba's protein advantage in action," said Rick Préjet, Chair of Manitoba Pork. "55 percent of the jobs in agriculture and agri-food processing rely on the hog sector and its producers."
With the expansion adding about 100 permanent full-time jobs, Senebald says they will first target to hire local people first. If that's not successful, they will look at the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP), which they've done in the past, and likely recruit from the Philippines.
As for housing for the new employees brought through the PNP, Senebald says they're currently working with a lot of local developers. "It's likely to be a challenge, but we think we have a lot of plans in place to take that on."
Senebald says they are very excited about the expansion. He says it's not only exciting to be a part of it, but it creates a supply chain that's extremely efficient for the industry, which makes them proud.
The expansion work is being undertaken in consultation with Efficiency Manitoba, which has identified opportunities for energy savings on the design and construction of the building in order to help be more environmentally friendly and contribute to economic competitiveness with lower energy costs for the company.