New
Kelly Penner - Natural Prairie
Beef
Farmscape for August 6, 2008 (Episode 2925)
Natural Prairie Beef says it will focus on niche export
markets when it launches a new line of premium-branded
Earlier this month Natural Prairie Beef,
in partnership with the Manitoba Cattle Enhancement Council, completed a deal
for the purchase of the former Maple Leaf pork processing plant on
The producer owned company has already started renovations.
President and CEO Kelly Penner
says the plant, the first federally inspected beef processing facility to come
on line in Manitoba in a generation, will employ the latest technology to trace
every animal from gate to plate.
Over the next couple of years we'll be retrofitting that
plant.
About two thirds of the plant will be demolished.
By the time we're done it'll be a brand new state of the art
plant.
Full traceability from gate to plate is our focus as far as
the traceability side.
We're targeting to open up in early 2010.
It'll be a plant that's designed to slaughter and process
250 head per day.
It'll have the capacity to expand to 500 head per day over
the course of the next five, six, seven years.
Our marketing plant right now is to include all cattle
producers are raising to include over 30 month old cattle, under 30 month fat
cattle, cattle that are raised for our natural programs.
We've done a lot of research on kosher and hal al which would include a lot of the conventionally
raised cattle in the province.
We believe we're at a transportation,
freight disadvantage to the rest of the country and we feel that
Penner says, once fully
operational, the facility will focus on premium niche export markets to avoid
competing directly against the industry's major packing companies.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.
*Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council
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