Farmers Forum staff
CORNWALL — Olymel is closing two of its Quebec pork-processing plants and shifting production elsewhere, including to Cornwall.
Company facilities in Laval and Blainville will cease operations April 28. Olymel, which announced the impending closures Feb. 1, employs a total of 170 people at the two locations. The company says those workers will be able to relocate to other company facilities, including its pre-cooked and pre-sliced bacon plant in Cornwall.
The Cornwall facility, located in the Seaway city’s business park, already has a workforce of 500. Cornwall’s economic development department reports that 25 new jobs will also be created, and that Olymel will invest another $2 million in the plant.
The production consolidation “should enable us to achieve our operational optimization objectives more rapidly in the context of unfavorable economic conditions, with rising raw material costs, labour shortages and the weakness of certain markets all affecting the company’s profitability,” Olymel President and CEO Yanick Gervais said. It’s part of a company reorganization that began more than a year ago.
With annual sales of $4.5 billion, Olymel has production and processing facilities in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick. A third of total sales go to export.
