St-Hyacinthe, Quebec, Canada. Olymel management is announcing an investment of $14 mill. to redevelop a section of its Berthierville poultry processing plant and install a new CO2 bird anaesthesia system.
The CO2 anaesthesia system that Olymel has chosen meets the industry’s highest standards for animal welfare. The company intends to implement the same slaughtering method by 2019 at its other primary poultry processing plants in St-Damase, Montérégie and Clair, New Brunswick. The latter is jointly owned with the Westco Group, one of the largest poultry producers in Canada.
In 2011, Olymel installed the same type of CO2 anaesthesia system for turkeys at its St-Jean-Baptiste-de-Rouville turkey plant in Montérégie, jointly owned with Exceldor (Olymel 68% -Exceldor 32%).
Olymel's Berthierville poultry processing plant in Lanaudière specializes in chicken slaughtering, cutting and deboning, and has a weekly capacity of nearly one million birds. The plant employs more than 425 people. The majority of its production consists of fresh products, such as Trussed chickens for rotisseries and various cuts. The plant also supplies other Olymel further processing plants with fresh poultry meat.