Toronto-based Maple Leaf announced Wednesday that operations at the company’s Kennedy Road poultry slaughter and packing plant in Brampton are suspended “while we complete an investigation” into the three coronavirus cases.

Meanwhile, CEO Michael McCain said in a statement, the company is now “deep-cleaning the plant including common areas and offices.”

While the company plans to complete that work “as quickly as reasonably possible,” he said, “we will not begin operating again until we are confident that it is safe to return to work.”

The Brampton poultry plant, along with another older poultry plant in Toronto, is already scheduled to close permanently by mid- to late 2022.

That move, announced in 2018, will follow completion of a new plant at London, Ont., where the company plans to consolidate its Ontario fresh poultry processing starting next year.

Maple Leaf’s other Brampton plant — a further-processing facility for chicken strips, sausages and boxed meats on Walker Drive — underwent a $25 million expansion about seven years ago.

McCain on Wednesday also confirmed the previously-reported COVID-19 diagnosis of a “team member” from the company’s Hamilton processed-meats plant, but noted that employee “had not been present at the plant for two weeks before the diagnosis.”

The Hamilton plant — a next-to-new facility, completed in 2014 — is “fully operating” after “thorough sanitation” was completed at the site, McCain said Wednesday.

McCain emphasized that “government experts in Canada and the U.S. have made it clear that COVID-19 is not a foodborne illness and there is currently no evidence that food is a likely source or route of transmission of COVID-19.”

However, he also noted “additional steps” now being taken at Maple Leaf facilities on top of the “normal, thorough daily sanitation in our plants” and employees’ standard use of personal protective equipment.

Among those, he said, are “increased, frequent sanitation of all common areas” such as break rooms, washrooms, locker rooms and cafeterias; social distancing through “increased spacing on production lines where possible;” staggered breaks and shifts; and using trailers and converted office space “to decrease the density of our people during breaks.”

Maple Leaf is also phasing in temperature screening of “all front-line employees” as temperature scanners are received at its sites, he said. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Ontario Provincial Police on Monday arrested some of the Tyendinaga Mohawk campaigners who had shut down the line in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en from British Columbia, who seek to stop construction of a gas pipeline over their land.

Demonstrators mounted a new rail blockade late on Monday night at a junction of three busy Canadian National Railway (CN) lines near Hamilton, southwest of Toronto, but left by about 5 p.m. ET on Tuesday, police said.

Hamilton police spokeswoman Jackie Penman said officers were inspecting the area, adding it was up to rail firms to decide when services would resume. The blockade closed four stations on Metrolinx’s GO Transit passenger line to Toronto from Hamilton.

Earlier in the day, Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said the impact of the blockades was unacceptable.

The standoff between authorities and the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, who have been battling the gas line for a decade, has grown increasingly tense as aboriginal bands and climate activists across Canada take up their cause.

The protests are testing Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s pledge to reconcile Canada with its indigenous groups, who face higher levels of poverty and violence and shorter life expectancies than the national average.

Many Canadians are growing frustrated, and that is giving a boost to Trudeau’s Conservative rivals, whose support is at 36 per cent compared with 33 per cent for the Liberals, according to a Nanos poll completed on Feb. 21 and published on Tuesday.

British Columbia police said they arrested 14 people overnight who were blocking a rail line west of New Hazelton, and a separate group has barricaded a major intersection near the Port of Vancouver’s main entrance.

Kanesatake Mohawk stopped traffic on Highway 344 in Quebec, and Kahnawake Mohawk blocked a Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) rail line south of Montreal.

That barricade “has severed vital rail connections and severely impacted CP’s operations, customers and the broader economy,” the company said in a statement.

— Reporting for Reuters by Denise Paglinawan in Toronto and Steve Scherer in Ottawa; additional reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa.

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The privately-held Winnipeg company on Tuesday announced expansion work is now underway on both its mill and adjacent Lake Ontario harbour terminal at Hamilton.

Few details were available in the company’s announcement Tuesday, other than that the Hamilton milling operation, opened in 2017, will have a second mill added which will “effectively double (the site’s) capacity” when it comes online, expected in 2020.

Before the Hamilton mill’s construction, P+H was already the province’s biggest flour miller and Canada’s second-biggest, with Ontario mills at Cambridge, Acton and Hanover, plus mills at Montreal, Halifax, Lethbridge and Saskatoon.

Expansion of P+H’s twin domed grain terminal at Hamilton’s Pier 10 “will continue to increase the company’s ability to connect Ontario producers with global grain marketing opportunities,” the company said.

The company didn’t say Tuesday by how much it plans to expand the terminal, which today has storage capacity for 49,500 tonnes of grain and can move 850 tonnes per hour. A company representative wasn’t immediately available to comment.

P+H in Tuesday’s announcement also pledged to add new crop input infrastructure at its Kerwood, Ont. grain elevator and ag retail site, about 45 km west of London, including a new fertilizer tower.

The tower will triple P+H’s fertilizer blending capacity at Kerwood, and will also include a new fertilizer mixer “specifically designed to thoroughly and uniformly apply micronutrients, nitrogen stabilizers and liquid additives.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Gay Lea Foods Co-operative on Wednesday announced a budget of $140 million over four years to set up what it describes as an “innovative nutrition and nutraceutical-grade dairy ingredients hub in Canada.”

First on the list is a $60 million expansion for the Mississauga-based co-operative’s creamery at Teeswater, about 100 km northwest of Guelph.

The dairy processing operation that later became known as Teeswater Creamery was established in the area in 1875 and became part of Gay Lea in 1981.

The Teeswater plant saw upgrades and expansions in 2011, backed in part by almost $1 million in provincial funding, to boost its production of milk products and milk protein concentrates for use in products such as infant formula, protein bars and protein drinks, and to serve as an exclusive ingredient supplier for Chapman’s Ice Cream.

The $60 million expansion pledged for the Teeswater plant, to begin early next year, is part of the co-op’s first phase in its multi-year plan, which Gay Lea said will also include upgrades and expansion at its Toronto-area food manufacturing facilities.

The Toronto expansions, the company said, are meant to “increase our capabilities and competitiveness, improving cost efficiencies, while working to reduce our environmental footprint.”

The first phase, Gay Lea said, also commits $3 million to build a new research and development centre of excellence in Hamilton.

The centre, Gay Lea said, will be a “working laboratory and innovation incubator” and “the nexus between R+D and commercialization throughout Gay Lea Foods’ operations, and also service our partners in the dairy, food and health sectors.”

Gay Lea, whose production facilities across Ontario employ about 950 people, has been expanding through acquisitions in recent years, buying Ontario processors Stirling Creamery last month and Black River Cheese in May.

The co-operative last month also announced plans for a new dairy ingredient and butter processing facility in Winnipeg, in a joint venture with Vitalus Nutrition. The venture would also see Gay Lea offer Manitoba dairy farmers the opportunity to join the co-op as member owners.

Gay Lea also recently bought a minority stake in goat’s milk and sheep’s milk processor Mariposa Dairy and expanded its membership to include Ontario dairy goat producers.

Dairy farmer and Gay Lea chairman Steve Dolson said the co-op’s new plan is “driving growth through innovation and the development of new markets that will increase demand for milk from Canadian dairy farms.” — AGCanada.com Network

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Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay on Thursday announced a $10 million “repayable investment” in the project from the AgriInnovation program, part of the Growing Forward 2 ag policy funding framework.

AgriInnovation is meant to back research and development work into new products, processes and practices for the ag and agrifood sectors, as well as projects to help commercialize those new developments. The program runs through to the end of March 2018.

At Hamilton, the program will help fund “exciting new technologies that will improve consumer confidence in wheat products,” MacAulay said.

P+H’s new “state-of-the-art” plant, the government said, will have a built-in traceability feature that’s expected to help the company identify specific product batches in case of a product recall.

The company also plans to use “the latest” technology in wheat cleaning, “to improve food safety by doing a better job of removing impurities before milling.”

Already Ontario’s biggest and Canada’s second-biggest flour miller by capacity, P+H expects to quadruple its wheat procurement from producers and add 16 full-time jobs with the new mill, the government said.

The company last December picked up a $5 million investment for the mill project from Ontario’s Food and Beverage Growth Fund. P+H itself is investing $40 million to build the mill, near its existing twin-domed grain terminal at Hamilton’s Pier 10.

The province said at that time the expansion of P+H’s Hamilton site is expected to allow the company to process 25 per cent more grain and boost its annual intake of Ontario wheat by more than 10 per cent.

The company already operates Ontario flour mills at Cambridge, Acton and Hanover, plus mills at Montreal, Halifax, Lethbridge and Saskatoon.

The company’s product lines include hard red spring wheat flour for breads, soft winter wheat flour for cakes and cookies, semolina for pasta, organic flour, rye flour and atta flour for chappati. Its Parrheim plant at Saskatoon also mills pea fractions and barley beta-glucan.

Derek Jamieson, president of P+H’s milling group, said in Thursday’s release the federal funds will support his group’s “ongoing commitment to food safety, innovation, productivity and quality” and help it “to continue to grow with our customers and support the sustainable growth of the baking industry in Canada.”

Local MP Bob Bratina said the company’s project “adds to our remarkable agricultural sector and provides the kind of development cities require for sustainable, recession-proof economies.” — AGCanada.com Network

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The provincial government on Monday pledged a $5 million investment from the Food and Beverage Growth Fund arm of its $2.5 billion Jobs and Prosperity Fund for P+H’s planned bulk mill. The company’s P+H Milling division will invest $40 million, the province said.

The new mill will be built on Hamilton’s Pier 10, where P+H already operates a unique twin-domed port terminal. The mill site will include “state-of-the-art” equipment and additional grain and flour storage, the province said.

The expansion is expected to allow P+H to process 25 per cent more grain and boost its annual intake of Ontario wheat by more than 10 per cent, the province added.

The province didn’t give a timeline for the construction in its release, but CBC Hamilton on Monday quoted P+H Milling president Derek Jamieson as saying the mill is expected to be built by late next year.

P+H is already Ontario’s biggest flour miller and Canada’s second-biggest, with Ontario mills at Cambridge, Acton and Hanover, plus mills at Montreal, Halifax, Lethbridge and Saskatoon.

The privately-held grain firm has been in flour milling since 1964, when it bought Hanover’s Knechtel Milling, followed by Ellison Milling at Lethbridge in 1975, Saskatoon pulse and grain processor Parrheim Foods in 1989 and Hayhoe Mills at Vaughan, Ont. in 2007. The Vaughan mill was lost to fire the following year.

The flour mills at Acton, Saskatoon, Montreal and Halifax came to P+H in 2009, in a $99 million deal for the 75 per cent of Burlington, Ont.-based Dover Industries that the Winnipeg firm didn’t already own.

The company’s product lines include hard red spring wheat flour for breads, soft winter wheat flour for cakes and cookies, semolina for pasta, organic flour, rye flour and atta flour for chappati. The Parrheim plant at Saskatoon also mills pea fractions and barley beta-glucan.

The Ontario government said Monday a new Hamilton mill will increase P+H Milling’s productivity, boost the company’s competitiveness, create 16 new jobs and help retain over 200 Ontario jobs.

Local MPP Ted McMeekin, a former provincial ag minister and Hamilton city councillor, said in Monday’s release that P+H’s plan is “great news for our community and will provide new opportunities for the Hamilton port and the larger regional economy.”

The Food and Beverage Growth Fund, launched in January, backs food and beverage processing and bioproduct projects with at least $5 million in total eligible costs. The fund offers grants or loans covering up to 20 per cent of those costs. — AGCanada.com Network

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Maple Leaf, one of the country’s biggest pork processors, said the majority of the job cuts would be completed by the end of 2015 and the rest in 2016.

Nearly half of the positions are based in the Mississauga head office, said spokesman Dave Bauer. Sixty-four are based at the new Hamilton, Ont. meat plant, where analysts noted excess staff and supervisors during a recent tour. The rest of the job cuts are scattered across Canada.

Senior management, led by CEO Michael McCain, remains intact, Bauer said.

Maple Leaf rolled out a program in 2010 to boost earnings by shutting some plants and modernizing others, and the company has struggled to be profitable during that period.

Its third-quarter profit was only its second in the past 11 quarters, and was slightly smaller than expected as the company flagged inefficiencies in starting new plants.

“After years of change and transformation, we’re now in a position to streamline the organization so we can operate as efficiently as possible,” Bauer said. He declined to disclose the savings or one-time costs involved with the cuts.

Reuters reported the job cuts on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Last month, Maple Leaf delayed into 2016 its target for increasing earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization as a percentage of revenue to 10 per cent.

Bauer said the job cuts would have only a small impact on reaching that target.

Maple Leaf’s free cash flow is set to grow next year, and the company has said it is interested in acquisitions in poultry processing or meat production.

The job cuts are not intended to make Maple Leaf more attractive for takeover, Bauer said.

Maple Leaf employs about 12,000 people in Canada.

— Reporting for Reuters by Anet Josline Pinto and Sneha Banerjee in Bangalore and Rod Nickel in Winnipeg; additional reporting for Reuters by Euan Rocha in Toronto.

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G3 Canada announced Tuesday it will build a new lake terminal at the Port of Hamilton to ship crops out of southern Ontario en route to export markets.

The 50,000-tonne capacity terminal, already being built at the port’s Pier 26, is expected to be complete for the 2017 harvest, to load vessels and move product to G3’s port handling facilities on the St. Lawrence River for export.

“Combined with G3’s existing facilities in Trois-Rivieres and Quebec City, and our strong marketing connections, we believe G3 will present a very competitive new option for Ontario farmers,” G3 CEO Karl Gerrand said in a release.

Winnipeg-based G3’s investment, he said, is part of the company’s plan to cast itself as a “coast-to-coast Canadian grain enterprise.”

G3’s Quebec City grain export terminal came to the company through U.S. grain giant Bunge, which along with Saudi Arabian firm SALIC is a joint-venture owner of G3. G3’s Trois-Rivieres facility, formerly Les Elevateurs des Trois-Rivieres (ETR), had been owned by CWB since 2013.

Grain exports from southern Ontario have been increasing “for some time now,” Gerrand said Tuesday.

“We recognize time is valuable for our farmer partners, which is why this facility has been designed to get trucks in and out as fast as any competing terminal in Ontario.”

Hamilton’s existing terminals handled over two million tonnes of grain, oilseeds and agrifood products in 2014, Hamilton Port Authority CEO Bruce Wood said in G3’s release.

Bunge, which with SALIC closed its deal to buy CWB and rebrand the joint venture as G3 at the end of July, also already operates an edible oil refinery on port real estate at Hamilton, on Pier 11.

Other companies already moving grain and agrifood products through their own facilities at the port include Richardson International, Parrish and Heimbecker, Agrico, Biox Canada, Vopak, Sylvite Agri-Services and Westway Terminals.

Winnipeg-based Richardson in 2012 put up over $5 million in expansions at its Hamilton terminal, including a second shipping tower for laker vessels and a third receiving pit for grain trucks.

Parrish and Heimbecker, another Winnipeg grain firm, is the owner of Hamilton’s two nine-storey-tall, 28,000-tonne capacity grain storage domes, opened in 2011. And Agrico recently doubled its fertilizer tank storage at Hamilton, to 40,000 tonnes.

The port’s direct access to the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway system means Hamilton is “ideally located for agrifood exporters,” Wood said.

G3’s neighbours at Pier 26 would include Bitumar’s asphalt terminal and the Windsor Salt terminal, owned by German fertilizer firm K+S. — AGCanada.com Network

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She said the plant will resume soybean processing after the investigation into the fire is complete and water is cleaned up.

There were no injuries, she said.

According to Hamilton’s fire department, the fire started inside a soybean dryer, causing $20,000 in damage.

The plant is one of five Bunge oilseed crushing plants in Canada.

The fire is the second in six months at a major Canadian oilseed plant. In October, an explosion and fire temporarily stopped production at Louis Dreyfus’ Yorkton, Sask. plant.

— Rod Nickel is a Reuters correspondent covering the agriculture and mining sectors from Winnipeg.

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The city’s fire department on Thursday said multiple fire crews responded to a report of a fire at the Bunge plant at about 12:40 p.m.

The fire, officials said, broke out at the base of a six-story-tall dryer building and extended up to the top of the structure. The fire was contained to the soybeans inside the building, but was “labour-intensive” to control.

Provincial environment officials reported “no concerns” with the fire, and no one was injured, the fire department said.

The crush plant, which Bunge bought from CanAmera Foods in 2002, has capacity to crush 3,000 tonnes of soybeans and canola per day.

The plant’s output was committed to a joint oil venture between Bunge and Quebec processor TRT ETGO from 2011 to 2013. — AGCanada.com Network

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