Reading Time: 2 minutes Red Deer’s Olymel plant remains closed following three deaths linked to the COVID-19 outbreak at the hog processing facility. The plant closed temporarily but indefinitely on Feb. 16, and as of press time, it remained closed, with more than 500 confirmed COVID cases linked to the facility by Alberta Health Services. That’s more than a […] Read more
Olymel closure due to COVID creates costly backlog for hog producers
Backlog of hogs tops 100,000 and it will take weeks to work through it when plant reopens
Olymel shipping backlogged hogs to U.S.
Company-owned hogs to go south after COVID closes Red Deer plant
Winnipeg | Reuters — Olymel said Friday it was shipping pigs to the United States to help clear a backlog of hogs after it had to temporarily close its Red Deer, Alta. slaughter plant because of a coronavirus outbreak. Olymel shut the plant on Wednesday and declared force majeure — unforeseeable circumstances that prevent contract […] Read more
Olymel to close Red Deer hog plant against COVID-19
Hog deliveries suspended 'until further notice'
Meat packer Olymel plans to temporarily close its hog slaughter and pork processing plant at Red Deer, Alta., winding down that facility’s operations starting this week against a rapidly spreading COVID-19 outbreak among workers. The plant, one of Canada’s largest by slaughter capacity at over 45,000 hogs per week, has notified its hog suppliers and […] Read more
Former F. Menard hog plant upgrading for second shift
Olymel announces $9 million in renovations
Pork and poultry packer Olymel plans to dial up its pork output with a new evening shift at a Quebec hog plant it now owns in the province’s Monteregie. Olymel, the meat packing arm of Sollio Co-operative Group, said Friday it will invest $9 million in renovations at its slaughter, cutting and deboning plant at […] Read more
Ontario hog set-aside plan underway
AgriRecovery program taking applications through March
Ontario hog farmers can now apply for AgriRecovery toward feed costs for hogs held back from sale when certain pork packers went into COVID-19-induced slowdowns. Agricorp, the province’s ag program delivery agency, on Nov. 25 announced the Canada-Ontario COVID-19 2020 Hog Maintenance Feed Initiative, which started effective Nov. 6 and will run through to March […] Read more
Shutdown urged for Quebec pork plant after COVID-19 death
Union calls on Olymel to close site for at least two weeks
The union for over 1,000 workers at a major Quebec hog slaughter plant is calling on the owner to temporarily close the facility against a COVID-19 outbreak now blamed for the death of an employee. Le Syndicat des travailleurs d’Olymel Vallee-Jonction-CSN said Wednesday the death of a worker earlier this week led it to demand […] Read more
Olymel to ramp up processing at Quebec poultry plant
St-Damase expansion work to take about a year
Olymel plans to bring more of its poultry further-processing in-house with a $31.5 million expansion at one of its major slaughter and cutting plants in Quebec’s Monteregie. The meat packing arm of Quebec’s Sollio Co-operative Group announced Monday it had started work that day on a 35,200-square foot plant expansion at St-Damase, about 50 km […] Read more
Olymel’s Red Deer plant holds at one COVID case
Pork plant employee's contacts returning to work
A production line employee at Olymel’s hog slaughter plant at Red Deer, Alta. remains the facility’s lone COVID-19 case after her contacts at the plant tested negative for the virus, the company says. Olymel, the meat packing arm of Quebec ag co-operative Sollio, confirmed the lone COVID-19 case at its Red Deer site on Aug. […] Read more
Red Deer hog plant books first COVID case
One employee confirmed with virus, 13 isolating as precaution, company says
A major Prairie hog slaughter and processing plant relatively untouched by the COVID-19 pandemic has marked its first case of the coronavirus in a production line worker. Olymel, the meat packing arm of Quebec ag co-operative Sollio, said an employee who reported for work Monday last week at its Red Deer, Alta. plant began showing […] Read more
Olymel pork plant workers take slaughter into OT
Over 800 volunteered for added shifts with charitable twist, packer says
Workers at three Olymel hog slaughter plants in Quebec volunteered for overtime shifts over the weekend to help clear the province’s backlog of market-weight hogs, the company said Saturday. Sollio’s meat packing arm said over 800 workers at its slaughter plants at Yamachiche and St-Esprit and the former F. Menard plant it now owns at […] Read more