Norval, Ontario -
Maple Lodge Farms Ltd., the second-largest chicken processor in Ontario, is battling to retain its market share in New Brunswick.
At issue are plans by Groupe Westco and Olymel to build a $30-million poultry processing plant in the northern part of NB.
Maple Lodge is fighting to retain the chicken it has been buying for its Nadeau Poultry Farm plant in St-Francois-de-Madawaska.
This June, Maple Lodge lost in an appeal it filed with the federal government's Competition Bureau (an appeal of the 2008 NB Farm Products Commission ruling) that producers didn't have to market to Nadeau.
On Aug. 31, Nadeau Poultry Farm announced it would lay off 175 people-over half the 340 employees at its St-Francois-de-Madawaska plant.
Now NB Agriculture Minister Ronald Ouellette is urging mediation.
Westco and Olymel say Nadeau could keep its plant running by bringing in chicken from Quebec and other Maritime provinces. They said this week (Sept. 3) that they hope Maple Lodge will finally meet with them to seek a solution. They have also tried to persuade Maple Lodge to sell its Nadeau plant to them (talks initiated in August 2007 broke off in January 2008).
"Our first choice has always been to process our chickens in New Brunswick, and that is why we have taken all possible measures to preserve jobs in the region while our slaughterhouse is being built by trying to find grounds for agreement with Maple Lodge," Westco CEO Thomas Soucy said via a news release.
Maple Lodge "has categorically rejected all our offers, and unfortunately, the workers are now paying the price," he said.
The point that Westco and Olymel make about Maple Lodge being able to import chicken from other provinces is a major bone of contention in the chicken industries of Ontario and Quebec.
There have been complaints that it makes little sense to truck live birds hundreds of kilometers with trucks going in opposite directions passing each other.
So far the two provincial marketing boards and processors have not been able to agree on a solution, so the inter-provincial movement of chickens has continued to increase.
