Winnipeg - Canada shipped 3,000 fewer hogs to the United States last week than a month ago as domestic packers processed more of the excess supply left by strikes at Maple Leaf Foods Inc, analysts said.
"The net additional increase in exports due to Maple Leaf's strikes now is lower," Canadian Pork Council executive director Martin Rice said in an interview.
The number is down from an estimated additional 15,000 hogs a week that were exported to the U.S. for slaughter at the start of the strikes in mid-November, Rice said.
"Western Canada has the ability to pick up the slack but eastern Canada is another story," Agriculture Canada livestock analyst Cathy Istead said.
Forty percent of Ontario hogs that would normally be slaughtered by Maple Leaf, Canada's largest food processor, were shipped to Quebec packers, another 40 percent to the U.S. and the remainder went to other Ontario packers, Istead said.
While Ontario hog exports rose 12,263 in the week of Dec 6 from pre-strike levels, increased kill in western Canada took more than 15,000 hogs otherwise destined for export, federal and provincial agriculture statistics and analysts said.
"We were killing 40,000 hogs a week until the strike, now we're killing 55,000 and in Alberta, Fletcher's has gone to a second daily shift," Manitoba Agriculture chief market analyst Janet Honey said of packer Fletcher's Fine Foods.
Union employees at Maple Leaf's two biggest kill-and-cut pork plants went on strike in mid-November. In unrelated occurences, workers at Maple Leaf's bacon plants in North Battleford, Sask., and Hamilton, Ont., were locked out earlier this fall.
Union officials representing the United Food and Commercial Workers and Maple Leaf officials were unavailable for comment on Wednesday regarding the status of the strike and if any talks had been occuring between the two parties.
Combined, Maple Leaf's kill-and-cut plants in Burlington, Ont., and Edmonton, Alta., slaughtered 60,500 hogs a week.
"We're doing some custom slaughter and contracting out in Canada and the U.S.," Maple Leaf spokeswoman Linda Smith said.
Canadian federally inspected hog slaughter for the week ended Dec 6 was 277,102 down 25,172, or 8.3 percent, from 302,274 the week ended Nov 8, Agriculture Canada figures show.
"The number of Alberta hogs going to the States has actually been decreasing," said Ward Toma, analyst with Alberta hog marketer Western Hog Exchange.
Fletcher's Fine Foods Ltd added a shift at Alberta's largest hog kill plant in Red Deer at the outset of the strike. Fletcher's officials did not return phone calls.
"Fletcher's increased their kill by a third in the last month to 30,000 a week," Toma said.
He said more hogs were being killed in Saskatchewan.
Maple Leaf's hog kill plant in Winnipeg put on a Saturday shift last week, Manitoba provincial hog statistics show.
"Theoretically, the capacity of our plants can't handle all of that excess supply," Scotia McLeod livestock analyst Rob Gigiel said. "They'd have to add on a full evening or night shift at Maple Leaf in Winnipeg to pick that up."
Schneider Corp's (Toronto:SCD.TO - news) six-month-old state-of-the-art facility in Winnipeg slaughtered more hogs that would have otherwise been earmarked for export to U.S. packers, Canadian Pork Council's Rice said.
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