The Canadian meat processor Olymel LP has closed its slaughterhouse in Red Deer, Alberta, following a major coronavirus outbreak among staff. Last week, hundreds of employees tested positive. The company has relocated the slaughter activities to a subsidiary in the northern United States.
Olymel shut down the plant on Wednesday, citing force majeure – unforeseen circumstances that prevent contract fulfillment. All personnel were laid off; Canadian unions have already protested against this. The facility can slaughter 45,000 pigs per week. Canada is the third largest pork exporter in the world.
According to Alberta Pork, between 40,000 and 50,000 pigs passed through the Red Deer plant weekly. Executive director Darcy Fitzgerald told Canadian media that even a closure of barely two weeks would create a significant backlog. “By March 1, we’ll likely have a backlog of about 130,000 pigs,” he said.
The backlog in Alberta currently stands at 80,000 to 90,000 pigs, and Olymel hopes to reopen in four to five weeks. Olymel has started shipping pigs raised on its own farms to American processors to work down the backlog.
The coronavirus spread in Canadian meat plants late last year, where workers typically operate in close quarters on the slaughter lines and in meat processing facilities. Cargill Inc. temporarily closed a beef plant in Ontario in December due to the pandemic.
American pork processors should be able to handle the influx of Canadian pigs if the animals are ready for slaughter over several weeks. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the United States generally imports about 100,000 pigs per week from Canada. U.S. pork companies slaughter roughly 2.6 million to 2.7 million pigs weekly.