Small, freestanding meat plants in Ontario have more time to apply for funds to help upgrade their facilities to new food safety standards.
The funding comes from the provincial meat plant assistance program, which was first announced in January 2006 with original deadlines of Feb. 15, 2008 and 2009 for small Category 2 and 1 plants respectively.
“Category 2” plants are those involved in “medium to high risk” work such as canning, curing, dehydrating, fermenting or smoking meats or making ready-to-eat meat products. They now have until Oct. 1, 2008 to apply for funding.
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“Category 1” plants are involved in lower-risk work such as aging or breaking carcasses, aging, boning, marinating, slicing or tenderizing meats, or packaging meats for wholesale, other sale or distribution. They now have until Oct. 1, 2009 to apply for funding.
There are over 630 freestanding meat processing plants in the province. Freestanding plants qualifying for the extension announced Monday must either have been producing less than 500,000 kg per year as of 2004 or not have been operating in 2004. Plant operators can get up to $25,000 in assistance through this program.
The program will also provide another $800,000 to the Ontario Independent Meat Processors to provide meat plant assessment services free to these smaller facilities, Agriculture Minister Leona Dombrowsky said Monday.
The assessments help companies pencil out the estimated costs of the changes needed to bring their plants up to the new food safety standards.
