Maple Lodge Farms purchases poultry processing plant
By Canadian Packaging Staff
General acquisition Chicken Farmers of Ontario Grand River Foods Maple Lodge Farms poultry processorGrand River Foods sells Beamsville, Ont. poultry processing plant citing need to focus on value-added products.
Grand River Foods of Cambridge, Ont. has sold its fresh poultry processing division to Brampton, Ont. headquartered Maple Lodge Farms in a deal to be finalized on December 1, 2011.
According to sources at Maple Lodge Farms, by the end of January 2012 it will close the Beamsville plant that employs 100 people to consolidate the operations into one of its own Maple Lodge plants in Mississauga.
As for Grand River, the decision to sell the 12-year-old fresh poultry processing plant was to concentrate on the ready-to-eat prepared foods segment at its facility in Cambridge that employes 300 people.
Supplied by some 120 local chicken farmers, the sold Beamsville plant slaughtered and processed the poultry for sale as fresh meat in grocery stores or back to Grand River facility in Cambridge for further processing.
Now with the sale of the facility, Maple Lodge which its large capacity, will sell chicken meat to Grand River for further processing and will easily be able to handle future growth of the company.
The sale of the facility also gives Grand River more funds to inject into its Cambridge operations or to add other smaller facilities that are involved in value-added production, according to the company.
Grand River Foods and Maple Lodge said in a news release that the Chicken Farmers of Ontario has provided the regulatory approval for the transfer, including conditions to benefit farmers who were previously shipping chickens to the plant in Beamsville.
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