In June of last year, in response to the shift in hog slaughter capacity from Winnipeg to Brandon, the Manitoba Pork Marketing Co-op closed its central assembly yard in Winnipeg opting instead for a series assembly points, including its existing yard at Neepawa and a new staging point at New Bothwell.

Earlier this month the co-op opened its third assembly yard at the corner of the Perimeter Highway and Provincial Highway Number Six at Winnipeg Livestock.

Co-op CEO Perry Mohr says, since the closure of the central yard, shipping patterns have changed substantially.

Perry Mohr-Manitoba Pork Marketing

We worked with the trucking companies, we've worked with the colonies that have bought their own trucks and they largely now ship full potloads of 200.

Our receiving yards are situated so that, if they have more than the 200 or they have more than two full loads or not quite two full loads, that our assembly yards are there to accommodate the extra hogs that they have that aren't quite in full load volumes and that's worked out quote well.

Especially at the Winnipeg Livestock facility, we've seen some of that happen.

In terms of our total volume I would suggest that at New Bothwell we're handling about one thousand a week, we're hoping to get up to that number at the Winnipeg Livestock facility as well, and at Neepawa right now we're handling probably 200 or 300 a week for Manitoba Pork and probably another just about 20 thousand for Springhill.

Mr Mohr notes, with the introduction of US Country of Origin Labelling, the volume of hogs moving into the United States has dropped dramatically.

He says, while some hogs are still moving south, the majority of the bacon hogs are flowing into the western part of the province.