Canadian beef firm spends $20m to create high-tech plant

Harmony Beef, owned by meat veteran Rich Vesta and family, will open in Alberta in September, creating approximately 125 jobs for local people. Vesta expects the facility, which is undergoing a $20 million facelift, will process in the region of 125 bovines each day. This number is predicted to increase to around 800 once the site is operating at full capacity, with another 200 jobs created within three years. The site is the largest EU-approved cattle facility in Canada, Vesta said: "We are very excited about the upcoming Comprehensive Trade and Economic Agreement (CETA) between Canada and Europe." Harmony Beef revealed it will be using equipment from British software solutions company, Systems Integration (SI), in the new 75,000sq ft facility. The system will manage the entire production process from abattoir to retail pack. Vesta explained: "People at SI understand the beef carcase and have actually cut meat. They know what the process is about and that was very important to us when selecting a supplier. "I’ve owned and managed businesses in the meat sector for over 40 years and, during this time, I’ve struggled to find a software supplier with this level of industry knowledge. In the past we haven’t been able to find an ‘off the shelf’ system that would work for a beef processing business, so have developed various solutions ourselves. With SI, we soon became very confident that they can deliver what we need."

Canadian beef firm spends $20m to create high-tech plant

A state-of-the-art beef processing facility is set to open in Canada this year, which its owners claim is the "first of its kind" in North America.

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