990643 Maple Leaf Manitoba Hog Plant Due By Fall

Winnipeg - Maple Leaf Foods Inc., Canada's largest food processor, expects to open its new hog processing plant in the western province of Manitoba by the end of the summer.

“It's going well. Right from day one we've said by the third quarter (of 1999) we would be functional,” manager David Wood told Reuters by telephone from Brandon, 200 kilometres (120 miles) west of Winnipeg.

“It's still on track,” he said.

The new $112 million plant will initially process 9,000 hogs per day, with plans to increase that to 18,000 hogs per day in three years' time, Wood said.

Manitoba is Canada's largest hog-producing province.

The new plant will increase Canada's domestic processing capacity. About eight million Canadian hogs were exported to the United States last year, creating vocal protests from some U.S. pork industry groups by year-end as U.S. hog prices dropped to 50-year lows.

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