Facility could provide up to 80 full-time jobs
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
British Columbia is helping to advance plans for a beef packing plant in Prince George.
The provincial government has earmarked up to $450,000 for the project, which would become the largest beef packing plant in B.C.
The funding will be used to help develop a business model, support local ranchers and determine how farmers will play a role in the plant’s ownership and operation.
B.C.’s beef industry also wants to create a cooperative like Ontario’s pork industry uses.
Construction could begin in 2019-2020. The plant could support 80 full-time jobs and about 620 indirect jobs.
“This project has the potential to ensure B.C. cattle are bred, raised and finished in our province, providing retailers, suppliers, restaurants and consumers with great quality B.C. beef,” Lana Popham, minister of agriculture, said in a June 2 statement.
“This can provide an economic boost to rural B.C. and give consumers what they want.”
British Columbia only has two federally-inspected meat packing plants, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
As a result, most of the beef in B.C. is shipped to Washington State or Alberta for processing.
B.C. ranchers produced 174,000 head of beef cattle in 2016, totaling nearly $220 million in cash receipts, so a new packing plant may just be what the industry needs.
"We have the livestock in B.C. to support a packing plant of a major size. Do we have the feedlots here that are feeding those cattle at this point in time? No, we don't," Tom de Waal, a member of the B.C. Cattlemen's Association, told CKPGToday. "And that's strictly because of the fact that we don't have a facility to slaughter these cattle."