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The owners of Thunder Bay Meat Processing are very concerned it appears no one wants to pick up the reigns as they soon look to sell.
Eleanora Vellinga tells us as she and her husband near retirement, it seems people are more interested in becoming engineers or some other type of professional.
“It’s a dying trade, and all of Ontario it’s been one of the biggest things that we don’t have enough people who are skilled at cutting meat, and taking things apart, and the whole processing end of this.”
The plant’s co-owner adds this is also a problem across Canada, with the federal government looking to add more skilled immigrants who can supply this type of work.
And, she says it seems to be a problem in Canada, but not internationally.
She’s worried for the future of their small facility near Murillo.
“It’s job you get better with time. And, you have to love it, and you want to spend the time learning it, and a lot of the younger people don’t want to spend the time.”
Vellinga says she can only speculate lack of interest, financial benefits and time needed to learn the business keep people away.
As they wonder how much small operations will survive as theirs numbers dwindle, work is being left up to the large scale processors.
“Some of these plants can kill 25-hundred head a day, so, a plant like ours, which is very small compared, we can do 50 to 60 a day, but we only do it one day a week.”
Vellinga adds currently there’s a plant in Fort Frances, Dryden and Sault Ste. Marie, leaving local farmers having to spend money to travel should Thunder Bay Meat Processing not find a buyer.
