The Saskatchewan Slaughter Plant Initiative, a partnership involving the Fishing Lake First Nation, the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board, Big Sky Farms and the province of Saskatchewan, has been working toward the construction of a new hog slaughtering plant in Saskatchewan since Maple Leaf announced, just over a year ago, that it would close its Saskatoon hog slaughtering plant.

Fishing Lake First Nation project consultant Jim Ramsay says an initial review shows, from a business planning and market analysis point of view, the project makes sense.

Jim Ramsay-Fishing Lake First Nation

We've completed our first level review that shows from a business planning and a market analysis point of view that it's a god project.

It makes sense.

What we're doing now is we're gathering another pool of funds from investors to actually hire the team to design and build the plant, to finalize the purchase of the land and create the urban reserve in Saskatoon that this plant will go on and we're anticipating that that'll be completed this spring and we'll be able to initiate construction.

The location is in the north heavy industrial area of Saskatoon.

It's 65 acres, it's a complete block, it'll be bordered by a rail line and two existing streets and then an extension of Marquis Drive by the city of Saskatoon and we're looking to build initially a one million hog slaughter plant.

The plant anticipated, including all the working capital requirements and everything, we're budgeting 100 million dollars right now and with our completion of our first level of review we are now asking the investors to make commitments.

Ramsay says the initial intent is to build a kill and cut plant but future plans include expansion into pork processing and selling processed meats.

He says the initiative partners hope to have the financial commitments in place within three to four months.