Maple Leaf Foods on Thursday reported a net loss of $311.89 million on $4.739 billion in gross sales for its fiscal year ending Dec. 31, 2022, down from net earnings of $102.82 million on $4.521 billion in sales in 2021.

For its fourth quarter alone, the company booked a net loss of $41.49 million on $1.186 billion in sales, down from net earnings of $1.88 million on $1.12 billion in sales in the year-earlier period.

The past year “was clearly a year of unprecedented challenges for us on many fronts, including hyper-inflation, dislocation in the pork markets, supply chain dysfunction, job vacancies and a cyberattack,” CEO Michael McCain said in a release Thursday.

Despite all that, he said, “we have maintained a steady hand on executing our plans including aggressively building our sustainability platform, starting up over $1 billion of new assets and converting our plant-based business model to profitable growth.”

McCain said the company “continue(s) to see an inflection point in our business,” noting the ongoing startup of Maple Leaf’s new poultry processing plant at London, Ont.

The company also expects its nascent plant-based protein business is “on track to get to adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) neutral or better” in the back half of 2023, he said.

The London poultry plant, construction of which was first announced in 2018 for completion in 2021, was delayed into 2022, reportedly due to wet weather and the COVID-19 pandemic. First budgeted at $660 million, the total capital spend on the new plant was pegged in Thursday’s report at $772 million.

By the end of 2023, though, the new London site is expected to have consolidated the work of five of the company’s existing Ontario poultry processing plants, four of which have been slated to be closed.

McCain told analysts on a conference call Thursday that the new London plant is expected to add $100 million to the company’s EBITDA margin on an annualized basis by the end of this year, whether the market dynamic seen in 2022 improves or not.

Another $30 million will be added to that figure during the ramp-up of the company’s “bacon centre of excellence” at its Lagimodiere Boulevard prepared meats plant in Winnipeg, also independent of the market dynamic.

The Winnipeg plant has seen expansions and upgrades in recent years for both bacon and ham processing, as the company consolidated that business from other plants across the country.

Its most recent “bacon centre of excellence” expansions, which included an additional smokehouse, two new pre-cooked bacon production lines and a new line for bacon bits and chips, involved a capital spend of $182 million, the company said Thursday.

Furthermore, company officials said exports to China have now resumed from Maple Leaf’s main hog slaughter and fresh pork cutting plant at Brandon, Man., following their suspension in 2020. The resumption of exports from Brandon to China will be “accretive to our earnings” starting early in the second quarter of 2023, the company said.

Maple Leaf and other companies are expanding back into the Chinese market just as demand for pork there is increasing and the pork supply from European exporting nations is seen to be declining, officials said.

The company said its “inflection point” will see a shift away from “pandemic-induced supply chain instability,” product prices lagging behind the current rate of inflation and a “sustained period of investing over $1 billion in new assets.”

Instead, Maple Leaf said it expects to see a transition this year to “supply chain stability.” Product pricing “to mitigate inflation” will be fully in place, also by the end of the second quarter of this year.

The company is also expecting “normalized” global pork markets, for which it said the “green shoots” are now visible.

“These unprecedented markets will normalize; they always do,” McCain said in Thursday’s release.

Maple Leaf in its fourth quarter also incurred an estimated $23 million in one-time costs from a ransomware attack on its computer systems in November.

The release of Maple Leaf’s 2022 ledger follows a report of losses from another major Canadian pork and poultry packer.

Quebec-based Olymel, the meat packing arm of Sollio Co-operative Group, in February reported a $445.7 million loss on $4.6 billion in sales for its fiscal year ending last Oct. 29. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Toronto-based Maple Leaf announced Wednesday it plans to buy the four barns from Polar Pork, a group of farms spearheaded by members of the Possberg family — well known as the founding family behind major Saskatchewan hog producer Big Sky Farms, which was sold to Olymel in 2013.

The exact terms of the deal and locations of the barns weren’t released, but Maple Leaf said it expects to invest up to $27 million in the barns over time.

That amount will include the acquisition costs as well as capital costs to “maximize capacity and add further animal care enrichments.”

Maple Leaf said its deal for the four barns, which it expects to close in June next year, will “enhance (its) overall pig supply and substantially increase its pig production capacity in the province.”

The deal, Maple Leaf said, has the potential to supply about 140,000 pigs to the company — a level it said is “directly” tied to plans to further boost production at its flagship pork slaughter and processing plant at Brandon, Man.

Michael Detlefsen, president of Maple Leaf Foods’ pork complex, said the acquisition “offers us ready access to some of the healthiest hogs in Saskatchewan that will allow us to enhance our deliveries of high-quality pork to customers in Canada and Asia.”

The company, Detlefsen added, is “very impressed with the skill the Possberg family and the team at Polar Pork have brought to the operation of these barns.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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FCL announced Monday it has budgeted $5 million to add 9,000 tonnes of capacity at the Co-op Fertilizer Terminal at Brandon, bringing its maximum storage to 36,500 tonnes.

Work began at the site in late October and is projected to be complete early next summer, the Saskatoon-based co-operative said.

The Brandon facility and its 45,000-tonne capacity sister site at Hanley, Sask., about 55 km south of Saskatoon, were opened in April 2017, followed by a third Prairie terminal in October this year at Grassy Lake, Alta., about 80 km east of Lethbridge, with capacity for 34,400 tonnes.

“Since we opened the (Brandon) terminal three years ago, customer demand has really exceeded our expectations,” Patrick Bergermann, FCL’s associate vice-president of ag and home, said in a release.

“Growers and truckers alike have really appreciated the incredibly fast service at this terminal which typically sees them safely loaded and back out on the road within 15 minutes.”

The Brandon site warehouses, blends and distributes fertilizer products for Co-op locations and farmers in Manitoba and eastern Saskatchewan. It also provides warehouse storage for liquid micronutrients and nitrogen stabilizers, “ensuring farmers have access to the latest in fertilizer technology,” FCL said.

When it announced its plans for the high-throughput Brandon and Hanley terminals in 2016, FCL said each would be able to load a super-B trailer with blended fertilizer in 10 minutes.

The new expansion is expected to allow the Brandon site to store more specialty products to support 4R nutrient stewardship, Bergermann said.

“4R” refers to a group of best management practices for sustainable fertilizer application — the “right” source, rate, time and place — in a manner that matches nutrient supply to crop requirements and limits nutrient losses from fields.

The stewardship program calls for fertilizers to be applied in forms that are “plant-available” or convert readily to plant-available forms in soil; that suit the properties of the soil; that complement other available or applied nutrients; and that blend in a compatible way. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The company said Tuesday it has “temporarily suspended pork exports to China on a voluntary basis due to recent protocols adopted by the Chinese government for Canadian processors.”

China’s protocol “requires any plant reporting a COVID-19 positive case suspend exports to China temporarily,” the company said in a release.

“We respect China’s new import protocols for Canadian products and are working co-operatively with Canadian and Chinese authorities to resume exports quickly,” company CEO Michael McCain said.

The Brandon plant, with capacity to handle up to 90,000 hogs per week, is the largest hog slaughter facility in Manitoba, which is Canada’s biggest hog-producing province in terms of pigs marketed.

The plant is also the main supplier of fresh pork for Toronto-based Maple Leaf’s other Canadian processing facilities and exports. Along with China, the Brandon plant is also federally licensed to export to the U.S., Mexico, Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam and South Africa.

The plant has seen several COVID-19 cases among staff in recent weeks, starting with a single case reported over the August long weekend.

By Aug. 10, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 832, the union representing production employees at the Brandon plant, said the case number had risen to 23.

As of Monday, Manitoba’s chief public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin said there are 56 COVID cases connected to an unnamed “place of business” at Brandon. The place in question has been widely reported to be the Maple Leaf plant.

Roussin reiterated Monday there’s no evidence of “workplace transmission” involved in the cases connected to the unnamed place.

Maple Leaf said its business has been “impacted by short-term increases in absenteeism” but emphasized in Tuesday’s release it believes that to be “a short-term situation and not a material financial event.”

Health experts, the company added, “have been unequivocal about the fact that COVID-19 cannot be transmitted through food products.”

As of Tuesday morning, Manitoba has reported a total of 748 cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, including 11 deaths. Of those cases, 235 are considered active, with eight in hospital.

The Prairie Mountain Regional Health Authority, which includes Brandon, has seen a total of 204 cases since the start of the pandemic, including one death. Of the total cases, 101 are considered active, with two people in hospital.

Maple Leaf said Tuesday it’s “continuing its rigorous safety efforts… to prevent workplace transmission amidst the recent COVID-19 cluster occurring in the community”and is “extending its efforts to reduce spread of COVID-19 within the community.”

It said it plans to do so by “reinforcing the importance of precautions such as social distancing,” and by making 500,000 free masks available to community members. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 832 said Thursday it was “made aware” late Wednesday night of three more positive cases of COVID-19 among what it described as “non-production unionized employees” at the Brandon, Man. plant.

Those cases bring the plant’s total to four, following a single case reported over the long weekend.

UFCW 832 president Jeff Traeger said in a statement the union now wants the company to halt production at the Brandon plant until at least Monday (Aug. 10), “until we have more results from the outstanding tests among our members at Maple Leaf.”

The union said Thursday that Toronto-based Maple Leaf so far “does not agree with the union’s position and has informed the union that they will be remaining open and continuing with production as usual.”

The Manitoba Co-operator on Thursday quoted a Maple Leaf representative as saying the company will “continue to operate our Brandon plant as long as we believe we can provide an environment that will protect the safety of our people while working.”

Manitoba health officials on Thursday reported 18 new cases of COVID-19 in the province’s western Prairie Mountain Health Region, within a cluster in Brandon that’s now up to 28 cases.

However, as the Co-operator noted Thursday, provincial officials are currently connecting that cluster to a travel-related case, not to community or workplace transmission.

The Brandon plant is the largest hog slaughter facility in Manitoba, which with over 600 farms is Canada’s biggest hog-producing province in terms of pigs marketed.

The plant is also the main supplier of fresh pork for Maple Leaf’s other Canadian processing facilities and exports.

The company, in its second-quarter financials last Thursday, chalked up its gross costs related to COVID-19 at about $19 million for Q2 alone, citing higher labour costs plus additional personal protective equipment, sanitation and “other expenses” associated with the pandemic.

The company’s designation as an essential service “does mitigate some of the more significant financial and operational impacts experienced in many other industries,” Maple Leaf said.

It also noted the potential remains for “short-term processing shutdowns required to protect the health and safety of plant personnel.”

Year-to-date, the company has booked a nine per cent increase in meat sales for 2020 over the year-earlier period last year, due in part to “an increase in hogs processed” as well as growth in exports to “Asian markets” and strong sales volumes in its retail channels.

Those retail volumes showed up particularly in a COVID-related surge in late March, though a COVID-related cut in foodservice demand has offset that surge, the company reported. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The company said it received word over the long weekend about the case. Citing its own review of the situation and consultation with public health officials, the company said the case was likely linked to community transfer.

UFCW Local 832, which represents workers at the plant, said that any plant staff who came in contact with the worker in question are currently self-isolating.

The Manitoba Pork Council says it hasn’t heard of any production chain disruption as a result of the positive COVID-19 case.

The Brandon plant is the largest hog slaughter facility in Manitoba, which is Canada’s biggest hog-producing province in terms of pigs marketed.

The plant is also the main supplier of fresh pork for Toronto-based Maple Leaf’s other Canadian processing facilities and exports.

Visit the Manitoba Co-operator website for the full story.

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Saskatoon-based Federated Co-op announced Monday it will consolidate its production of bulk and bagged cattle, horse, sheep and poultry feed into three of its existing plants, at Calgary, Saskatoon and Moosomin, Sask.

That means winding down operations and shuttering Co-op Feeds’ plants at Melfort, Sask. in August and at Brandon, Man. in October. Media outlets in Manitoba and Saskatchewan on Monday quoted Federated Co-op officials as saying those two closures will affect a total of 10 jobs.

The sixth Co-op Feeds plant, at Edmonton, and its operations are to be transferred to Wetaskiwin, Alta.-based Country Junction Feeds, a division of Wetaskiwin Co-op, at the end of September.

Federated Co-op said Monday it will make “significant capital investments” to modernize Co-op Feeds’ three remaining plants, including new bagging equipment to support “better stitched, open-mouth bags.”

“While we don’t make these decisions lightly, by consolidating manufacturing and taking measures to refocus our resources in the livestock sector, we’re better able to serve our local co-ops and their producer customers across Western Canada well into the future,” Ron Healey, Federated Co-op’s vice-president for ag and consumer business, said in a release.

Federated Co-op said it undertook a “full review” of its feed business — and its decisions to close facilities and make capital investments at others are meant to “address unprecedented competitor consolidation and a changing market in the feed sector.”

The parent co-operative said it’s “making these changes to help ensure that it can continue providing Co-op feed products and services in the long term.”

Shelley Revering, Federated Co-op’s director for feed, said the move “results from industry challenges and in no way reflects the substantial efforts of our plant teams.”

For its part, Country Junction Feeds said in a separate release Tuesday its acquisition of the Edmonton feed milling plant will provide “significant feed mill capacity directed at serving northern Alberta and beyond.”

Combined with its current operation, the company said, the Edmonton plant will allow it to deliver a “wide range of feed and solutions to fit all major livestock and equine species and production approaches, including tailored solutions for different stages of life and both conventional and niche market opportunities.”

Country Junction today bills its Wetaskiwin plant, built in 1973, as the “only full-line feed mill producing organic feeds in Alberta.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Cambridge, Ont.-based GVF Group announced Thursday its Farmers Farmacy business, previously available only to producers in Ontario, the Maritime provinces and Quebec, now also serves Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

“A lot of the progress of Farmers Farmacy has happened very organically, driven by the evolution of the marketplace and our farmer customer base,” GVF vice-president David Ross said in a release. “The new western expansion is another natural next step.”

The company began shipping goods to the Prairies at the end of June and will offer physical pickup and in-store ordering at the Lethbridge, Red Deer, Brandon and Winnipeg locations of another GVF subsidiary, mineral premix manufacturer Fortified Nutrition Ltd.

Orders can be made online, by phone or fax or at one of the four locations for pickup within two weeks, the company said. Shipping to one of the four pickup points will be free on orders with a before-tax value of $500 or more.

The company last year opened a retail store at Brandon but said it will now transition that operation to a Farmers Farmacy ordering and pickup point.

“The world of retail and distribution is constantly evolving, with advances in e-commerce and on-demand, direct-to-customer options leading the charge,” GVF CEO Ian Ross said in the same release.

“This presents exciting opportunities to bring innovative models and options to the marketplace — including new ways of bringing enhanced convenience, efficiency and value to farmers.

Farmers Farmacy is billed as offering a “full catalogue of over 1,700 items ranging from animal health products to barn equipment, maintenance supplies and work clothes.” The company said its online retail items cover a “complete range” of options for dairy, swine, poultry, beef and sheep operations.

The Farmers Farmacy business started in 1996 as a service offered to premix customers of GVF Group’s flagship operation, Grand Valley Fortifiers, running out of a back room at the Grand Valley premix plant.

Farmers Farmacy relocated in June to a 23,000-square-foot space in Cambridge, including a physical retail outlet.

The company said its Cambridge staff will be “directly involved” in serving Prairie customers alonside local staff at the Fortified Nutrition stores. — AGCanada.com Network

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Levels of future snowfall and/or rainfall, the timing and speed of snowmelt, and the runoff timing in Manitoba, the U.S., Saskatchewan and Ontario are still “key factors,” the provincial government said Monday in a release.

Forecast models so far suggest the Red, Souris, Pembina, Roseau and Lower Assiniboine rivers and the Whiteshell Lakes areas are at “major risk of flooding,” the province said, noting conditions in the Souris River basin will affect the lower Assiniboine River in western Manitoba.

Overland flooding risk, meanwhile, is “moderate” for the Interlake region, along the upper Assiniboine River and the province’s north including the Saskatchewan River.

Manitoba’s major lakes “remain a concern,” the province added, and current river flows and other lake levels are “normal to above normal for this time of year.”

The early melt seen in the middle of February in the southern portion of the Red River basin has “diminished” most of the snowpack south of Grand Forks in North Dakota, the province noted.

“This has slightly reduced the potential for flood flows on the Red River in Manitoba, but it has also left the soil saturated and prone to high runoff volumes from future precipitation.”

Saskatchewan’s Water Security Agency on Feb. 9 released a preliminary outlook which suggests “below-normal” runoff potential in most of the province — except in its southeast, which includes the Assiniboine, Souris and Qu’Appelle river basins.

The Manitoba government said Monday its plans and preparations will be based on unfavourable weather conditions and “the scenario of highest flood risk,” and it will work with municipal emergency management teams to review existing emergency response plans and share information.

“At this time, we encourage communities to continue with preparatory measures such as ensuring emergency protocols are in place,” Infrastructure Minister Blaine Pedersen said in Monday’s release.

Information on preparing rural Manitoba properties and beef and hog farms for flood conditions is available online. Flood information seminars are also to be held at later dates in Morris, Brandon and Selkirk, Pedersen said.

The province’s second and final flood outlook is due out in late March. –– AGCanada.com Network

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The major Canadian meat processor on Friday released what it billed as a formal “Animal Care Commitment,” to which CEO Michael McCain said the company will apply “the necessary organizational focus and resources, with a steadfast commitment to advancing the humane and science-based treatment of animals.”

Toronto-based Maple Leaf said it would “enhance animal wellness practices in a manner consistent with the Five Freedoms, the most widely accepted global standard for responsible animal care.”

With that in mind, the company said it will develop a three-year Animal Care Strategy “identifying goals and initiatives that advance the Five Freedoms across our supply chain, including husbandry, environmental enrichment (e.g. space, lighting, air quality), pain mitigation, euthanasia, transportation and governance.”

In a separate release Friday, Nathan Runkle, president of the Canadian arm of Los Angeles-based animal welfare group Mercy for Animals, hailed Maple Leaf’s announcement as “a historic and game-changing policy that promises to reduce the suffering of millions of animals.”

“Scientifically advanced and humane euthanasia,” including controlled atmosphere stunning, is to be set up in all Maple Leaf fresh poultry plants, the company added.

Controlled atmosphere stunning is favoured by some animal welfare advocates as a more humane alternative than electrical stunning to render birds unconscious and unable to feel pain at slaughter. The method involves exposing birds to concentrated gases such as carbon dioxide.

Mercy for Animals hailed the controlled-atmosphere poultry stunning plan as the “most notable” of the pledges Maple Leaf made Friday.

Moving to controlled-atmosphere stunning, the group said, “will spare millions of birds from the horrific suffering caused by shackling, shocking, and slitting the throats of conscious animals.”

For the company’s major pork slaughter and processing plant at Brandon, Man., Maple Leaf pledged Friday it will install carbon dioxide (CO2) stunning equipment and retrofit the plant’s barn area to “enhance animal care and humane euthanasia.”

All sows under Maple Leaf’s management are to be transferred to loose housing, Maple Leaf said Friday, budgeting for at least 37,000 sows in group housing by 2017, and “accelerating” the company’s previous timeline to move the remaining sows under company management away from gestation-crate housing.

Maple Leaf’s original timeline, set up in 2007, had called for a phase-out gestation-crate housing for sows at company-owned hog production sites within 10 years.

Maple Leaf, however, took over financially troubled Niverville, Man.-based hog producer Puratone in 2012, substantially boosting company-owned hogs as a percentage of its total supply.

Maple Leaf said Friday its pork and poultry operations will also now undergo an “annual independent audit by company-approved auditors, and expediently correct any deficiencies.”

The company said it would also “advocate strongly for enhancements to on-farm poultry audits, including increased transparency and comprehensive annual independent audits.”

The company said it will also “further enhance current approaches to pain management and potential alternatives to procedures such as surgical castration and tail docking.”

Maple Leaf also pledged to “reduce or eliminate antibiotic use across our supply chain, while recognizing the importance of providing the necessary medication to sick or injured animals.”

“Remote video auditing” is also to be set up in Maple Leaf’s production and processing plants, starting with three this year, the company said. “Detailed” reports are to help advance training and operating practices and to help Maple Leaf “respond swiftly to any animal welfare incident.”

The company said it will also now advocate for federal animal transportation regulations to be modernized, and for “other regulatory reforms that raise standards,” such as incorporating industry codes of practice into provincial legislation.

The “pillars” of the company’s Animal Care program will serve to advance the Five Freedoms, Maple Leaf said.

Those four pillars, the company said, include culture (communications, education, training, policies and operating procedures, positive reinforcement and consequences for violations); accountability (reporting of performance and “frequent, rigorous internal and independent audits”); advancement (best practices and technologies, supporting research, advocating for improvements); and communications (with the public and stakeholders).

The Five Freedoms, as first listed by Britain’s Farm Animal Welfare Council in 1979, are freedom from hunger or thirst; freedom from discomfort; freedom from pain, injury or disease; freedom to express normal behaviours; and freedom from fear and distress.

While there’s “still work to be done,” Mercy for Animals’ Runkle said Friday, Maple Leaf’s new policy “represents one of the most sweeping animal welfare policies ever adopted by a meat producer.

“As the largest meat company in Canada, Maple Leaf Foods is setting the bar for producers in Canada and abroad — and making it clearer than ever that the days are numbered for the factory farming industry’s cruelest practices.” — AGCanada.com Network

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