Country Prime Meats is recovering after a disastrous fire last January destroyed much of its plant in Lac la Hache.
Now back into production, Country Prime Meats operations director Peter Springman says the fire was “quite devastating.”
“In the beginning, it didn’t look quite as bad as when we got further into the demolition and repairs and it turned out how significant the overall damage actually was.”
Substantial repairs thwarted initial expectations for the plant to be up and running by June and held back reopening until mid-August, he explains, for seven-and-a-half months of downtime.
The freshly renovated building does look “magnificent,” Springman adds, and his employees are happy to be back on the job – even more so now they have a brand new work environment.
Currently running at about 70 per cent capacity, he says they are still in the start-up phase of ramping up production volume and have restructured staffing accordingly.
Springman explains the family-run operation kept about half of its staff employed the whole time it was closed, working on the cleanup, demolition and rebuilding.
“It was nice because everyone was involved with it, and everybody was feeling like they were a part of the new building and equipment.
“They take charge and they take ownership after they’ve helped with the rebuilding of the company.”
Some of the employees who were laid off have now been brought back, but he notes others had moved on to other jobs.
The staff is going through a recovery stage right along with the business, Springman explains, as a result of the long down time after running the plant for many years.
“People have to get back into it, and all the equipment needs to be fine-tuned and tweaked again. It’s a bit of a struggle, and it can be quite frustrating for a lot of staff … it’s a tough recovery.”
Country Prime Meats has good employees who know what they are doing, he adds, and management has “total faith they will get the whole facility back into full swing very soon.”
Beyond the insurance repairs, some upgrades were also installed to expand the dry room and smokehouses, Springman explains.
He says this is significant for the business, as that removed a previous bottleneck and increased production capacity by 30 per cent.
The Springman family also invested in tripling both the electrical and the hot water supplies, he adds.
The company produces pepperoni products exclusively, with a big part of that business under the Freybe Gourmet Foods label, and Springman says the family is “excited” to be back working with their key customer again.
The federally-inspected facility also markets pepperoni under its own label, both domestically and exported to Asia, but he explains there are specific requirements and unique hoops to jump through for each country.
Throughout the whole rebuilding process, Country Prime Meats has continued its efforts to delve into exports to the United States, and Springman says they’re thrilled to have recently made its first shipment to Canada’s southern neighbour.
“A big thank you goes to the five people, including my brother Marcus, who were fighting to save our business on the night of the fire. They were really risking their lives.
“It was a really close call, 10 minutes later and the whole building would have gone up.”
