September 6, 2010

Canada's Ontario funds Metzger Meats' expansions

Metzger Meats Products, which processes beef, lamb, pork, chicken and turkey, will get US$350,000 from the province's Rural Economic Development programme for its planned expansions

The regional meat processor located in southwestern Ontario's Huron County will get rural development funding for more smokehouses and cookhouses and improved production.

Between the new equipment and plans to modernise the plant's production management system and improve both the productivity and efficiency, the company is expected to increase its smokehouse and ready-to-eat meat production by 400%, the province said Thursday (Sept 2).

The increased production in turn is expected to create up to 10 new jobs, the province said.

The expansion and modernisation will "make Metzger Meats more competitive and help us supply the increasing demand for meat products in Ontario. This will also allow us to continue to support local farms and create more jobs for the people in the Hensall area," company president Gerhard Metzger said.

Meztger, a family-owned business, operates a provincially licensed and inspected abattoir which last saw a major expansion in 2002, when the company built out a new processing area and a larger retail store on its existing building.

The company bills itself as its own pork supplier, operating a hog farm at nearby Dashwood that has bred a cross of Landrace, Yorkshire and Berkshire hogs for an animal that's "superior in meat quality."