Edmonton Co-op Feeds facility moving production to Wetaskiwin

Aging facilities and business consolidation are being cited by Federated Co-operative Limited as reasons for its decision to close three of its six livestock feed production plants on the Prairies.

FCL said its Co-op Feeds operations in Melfort, Sask., and Brandon, Man., will shut down in August and October respectively, while production at a facility in Edmonton will be moved south to Wetaskiwin.

Manufacturing will continue at plants in Calgary, Saskatoon and Moosomin, Sask.

The plants produce cattle, horse, sheep and poultry feed in bags and bulk orders.

Ten jobs will be lost through the Brandon and Melfort closures, but FCL associate vice-president Patrick Bergermann hoped the employees can find work in the company’s retailing system.

He said the company will do its best to ensure that livestock producers affected by the closures will continue to get the products they need from the three remaining plants.

Bergermann said there has been consolidation on both the producer side and manufacturing side of the feed business.

He also said the plants slated for closure have a “lot of age.

“They were going to require a lot of capital investment ... we needed to look at what was going to be sustainable,” he said.

Bergermann also said the shutdown of the facility in Melfort is not an indictment of the quality of work done by the company’s employees.

“We’ve got a lot of great people there that have been doing a good job in serving local producers for a long time,” he said.