Quebec meat packing firm Olymel is set to double the production space at the La Fernandiere sausage plant it bought last year at Trois-Rivieres.
The company, an arm of major agrifood co-operative La Coop federee, announced plans to spend $8.1 million to double the plant’s area to over 45,000 square feet, setting up more space for both production and warehousing.
The expansion project, which is already underway, is expected to be complete in December “without any disruption in the company’s operations,” Olymel said.
The expansion will include reconfiguration of the plant’s four current production lines, the addition of a fifth and “new spaces” including a 500-pallet storage room for frozen products and more storage for raw and packing materials.
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The La Fernandiere plant, which makes and markets La Fernandiere brand sausages and Olymel, Lafleur and private-brand fresh and breakfast sausages, will also start making meatloaf again, a product that was discontinued, but “for which there is still demand,” the company said.
La Fernandiere “is giving itself the means to better meet the ever-increasing demand of the sausage market segment,” Olymel said.
Olymel also recently announced it will add a sausage production line to its pork packing plant at Red Deer, Alta., to supply sausages to the western Canadian market.
The Trois-Rivieres expansion, when complete, is expected to allow will Olymel to consolidate 200 jobs and boost the plant’s annual production capacity to nearly 20 million kilograms, up from 14 million today.
Olymel noted that since it took over the facility, the employee roster has increased from 80 to over 200.
Trois-Rivieres and the surrounding Mauricie region “possess positive assets in terms of labour and services that are capable of sustaining the development of companies such as La Fernandiere and Olymel,” Olymel CEO Rejean Nadeau said in Tuesday’s release. — AGCanada.com Network
