Saint-Agapit: Dozens of jobs lost in Agri-Bio slaughterhouse closures

Cooperative Exceldor will close its poultry slaughterhouse in Saint-Agapit on April 21. In total, 67 people will find themselves out of work. The company confirmed that it had to stop work on the Agri-Bio slaughterhouse, which was acquired in 2012.

According to Exceldor’s Head of Government and Public Relations, Denis Paquet, the decision was not taken lightly. “It’s never a good idea to tell loyal employees that they’re going to have to change jobs,” he says.

The past 15 months have been “particularly difficult” for the cooperative’s specialized poultry slaughter plant, according to Mr. Paquet. “It was really wrong. We recorded losses of more than $100,000 a month. It can’t go on like this.”

Exceldor will meet individually with all affected employees to help them through this difficult phase. We will offer them to move to other branches, such as our slaughterhouse in San Anselme, says the head of government and public relations. We have great labor needs everywhere, so we will give employees the opportunity to stay with us.

shock wave

The mayor of Saint-Agabet, Yves Gingras, received news of the closure “like a crushing blow”, when Exceldor’s general manager, Christian Jacques, called him with the bad news, on 8 March.

This slaughterhouse has been in operation for more than 30 years. […], Sad thing. There are dozens of good jobs for people from Saint-Agapit and beyond,” he notes.

The mayor himself has been working for Agri-Bio for 25 years and says he has a “special attachment to the place.”

Many of the municipality’s citizens were silent when they learned that the factory would have to close its doors. “It’s pretty amazing, and it seems to be working really well. It’s unfortunate that the region is losing paid jobs,” Martin Murray said.

For her part, Liz Maylie felt a twinge in her heart when she heard the news, because she had personally known the previous owners, the Geiger family.

“They’ve been there for years,” she says. iPhone [Giguère] He and his wife, Roland, started a small chicken slaughterhouse in Roux de la Lien. It hurts even more, because we’ve seen it evolve.

A glimmer of hope

However, Mr. Gingras asks the affected employees not to despair, as discussions have already taken place with the owner of a slaughterhouse in the area to change the one in Saint-Agapit into a processing plant.

“It bodes well for the place to change the profession, but while retaining some of its staff. It will certainly be smaller, but it will still help maintain good jobs. We will know more in the coming months.”

For his part, Exceldor did not want to exaggerate the substance of the negotiations. We know that there are people who want to take over the factory. We will maintain the equipment, we will not disassemble anything, Denis Paquet specifies. […] We are open to any deal with anyone who wants to take over our factory. What they want to do with it is not up to us.”