Itochu Corp. of Japan is paying $56.6 million to buy 33.4
per cent of HyLife Group of La Broquerie, Man.
It’s the third major deal for a large Prairie hog company
within the last four months.
HyLife’s history goes back to a name change from Hytek in
2011 and to the Hutterite colonies that set up the Springhill Farms pork
packing plant at Neepewa.
It’s a much bigger business now, marketing 1.4 million hogs
per year, running feed mills and a barn-building business and a lab to test
genetics.
It has a deal with a Chinese food company that has given it
access to the largest pork market in the world.
Itochu has its own partnership with another Chinese food
company and says it intends to focus on expanding sales to China and Japan.
Production and processing from Manitoba will be focused on
these and other Asian markets.
Itochu has some other agriculture and food investments in
North America, mainly in grain trading.
The other big hog-farming deals have been sales out of
bankruptcy of Big Sky Farms of Saskatchewan to Olymel and Puratone Corp. of
Manitoba to Maple Leaf Foods Inc.
