Pushing off Larsens’ ‘little black cloud’

BY SARA KEDDY

Kings County Register

Mike Lee is doing everything he can to keep the Larsens plant in Berwick operating.

Should you believe the man who was manager last spring as Maple Leaf - which also owns Larsens - closed its chicken processing plant in Canard and laid off 400 people?

“That’s a burden I don’t want to do again. I had all those employees with houses, bills - and we operated four more months under those circumstances.”

Looking at Larsens from the outside, he says, he would have had the same concerns circulating in the community for months - if not years: closure.

“I don’t have those anymore.”

Canard, he says, was an old plant; Larsens has had “significant capital investment, a recent addition and state-of-the-art upgrades.

“It’s in a good position: strong products, and the only facility like it in Nova Scotia.”

Lee replaced a third-generation Larsen - Mike - this summer as plant manager when Larsen turned down a company offer to transfer. Lee knows the challenge.

“We’re trying our best to function under a black cloud: we’re constantly - wherever we go - hearing everyone saying we’re going, we just don’t know it.”

He acknowledges Maple Leaf president Michael McCain’s announced strategy last spring to consolidate hog operations in Manitoba in 2009 “didn’t help matters,” but that plan is for the good of the company - and the Berwick plant “isn’t even on the radar.”

That gives Lee time to position Larsens.

First, Larsens is adjusting its kill from a bloated 5,000 hogs a week a few years ago to about 2,500. Too many pigs coming through the plant in recent years forced Maple Leaf to dump excess pork on the commodity market, rather than sell for the higher prices value-added products - ham, bacon, bologna - get.

“Too many pigs and the growers getting out - the approach here was not to fight it: let them go, we were fine with that.”

Now, he’s bringing in sides of pork from as far as Ontario to keep the processing lines going - it’s still cheaper than local pork, but, with fewer local producers sending pigs to Larsens, it likely can’t continue.

“I would have definite concern for the kill side of the operation, but we’ve told growers we won’t make any changes - no leaving them in the lurch - without six months’ notice.”

That means, he says, Maple Leaf will take pigs in local barns - in the Berwick plant. “Obviously, that decision comes from higher up.”

Whether Larsens would talk to the provincial government - consistently denying support for hog growers in the last year - about a line the plant can’t cross without local hogs, Lee says it wouldn’t be about money, for the plant or farmers.

“That wouldn’t be typical. We have some people working with government, but anything more would likely be a call from Michael McCain.”

In the meantime, the present kill takes two days, and keeps about 350 workers employed hourly or on salary.

“We’re short-staffed - we need to staff lines and fill orders,” Lee says. “I could hire 40 or 50 people tomorrow.

“If you’re working in fast food or retail - that’s not long-term. Even if - if - there is a structure change here that does affect hourly people, it’s two years away.”

There’s a $500 signing bonus after 500 hours for new hires, and a $500 recruitment bonus for staff who refer people. Larsens also is looking for ways to grow its community profile.

In house, staff on all kinds of committees are looking for efficiencies, cost variances, new projects and changes to daily activities and equipment.

“Our goal going forward is to make this plant so attractive and profitable as a standalone operation, when Maple Leaf swings that search light over the East coast, it won’t come to a decision.

“Everyone here is working their tail off.”

Message to mayor: back us or lose us

Berwick Mayor John Prall admits he was surprised to hear from Larsens plant manager Mike Lee last week.

“I was a little afraid, too.”

The town and wider community has been bracing for the worst news - the plant’s closure - as the hog industry fails and Maple Leaf announced earlier this year it would consolidate hog processing in Manitoba by 2009.

“This Mike laid it on me really good: if we don’t do something positive, get Larsens back to a viable operation - it will be gone.”

Prall said he will take his discussion to town council and work on ways to “create the situation and remain as positive as possible, put a good spin on it - then, when Maple Leaf comes here, there really will be no decision to make.”

Prall said the challenge will be to move from a self-defeating position to getting the community behind the plant.