Canadian pork and poultry processor Olymel has moved to expand its hog processing operations with the acquisition of hog producer Pinnacle Farms near Strathmore, Alberta, for an undisclosed sum.

Olymel said the deal will bring the number of sows available to the company in the west of the country to 52,000. “The transaction will also make it possible to deliver 100,000 more hogs annually to the Olymel processing plant in Red Deer, Alberta, whereas these pigs were previously sold as iso-weans and feeders to other buyers in Alberta and the US”, Olymel said.

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To turn the additional pigs into market hogs, Olymel said it will require 30,000 contract finishing spaces through new or existing capacity in Alberta.

Assets acquired by Olymel include a quarantine barn, sow barns, nursery barns and finishing barns. In addition to the Pinnacle Farms facilities, Olymel said it will lease finishing farms near Medicine Hat, Alberta.

Olymel president and CEO Réjean Nadeau said: “This addition in our pork sector should support the target Olymel has set for 2020: to produce more than 1.5 million hogs annually in western Canada in order to meet the growing demand from its customers.”

Pinnacle Farms has been supplying finishing hogs to Olymel for more than four years. The company has 30 employees who will now join Olymel’s workforce.

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Pinnacle Farms director Ron Arnason said: “This transaction opens the door to the company’s further development and will enable it to serve new markets.”

Olymel announced plans last month to expand pork production at its processing facility in Vallée-Jonction in Quebec, a site that primarily manufactures products to serve the Japanese market

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