The Sunhaven Farms Story

Transcription

1 The Sunhaven Farms Story A Presentation To The Agriculture Labour Summit 2014 Red Deer, Alberta Frank Novak Managing Director, Alberta Pig Company

2 Outline Thanks For the Invite An Introduction to Sunhaven, Our Business Model and Why You Might Care Lessons Learned in Employing TFW s Our Labour Complement Some Success Stories

3 On Competition If You Don t Have A Competitive Advantage, Don t Compete - Jack Welch

4 Margin Over Feed Cost Margin Over Feed Cost ( ) Month Year

5 TOP CANADIAN PRODUCERS Rank Name # Sows Maple Leaf 63, ,000 2 Hylife 60,000 40,000 3 Olymel 41, Progressive 35, ProVista 28,000 0 Premium Pork 0 40,000 Stomp Pork 0 27,000 Puratone 0 25,000 Sunhaven 14,000

6 Sources Of Competitive Advantage? Producers Are Very Small Relative to Our Business Partners Markets Are Volatile Need To Find Competitive Structure Niche Markets, Novel Business Arrangements RWA Program with Loblaws and others Welfare Based Program with Calgary COOP

7 Sunhaven Farms Circa 2014 Production 14,000 Sows Marketing Over 300,000 Hogs 25 Offsite/Contract Finishing Facilities (90,000 Spaces) 6 Different Feedmills, Approx 100,000MT Feed Dedicated Internal Pig Hauling Several Joint Ventures and Partners in Production and Marketing eg Joint Venture Boar Stud

8 Sunhaven Farms So Why Do You Care? These Niche Market Programs Involve Higher Levels of Management Greater Buy-In / Attention From Staff Our Strategy Has Been To Recruit Skilled Workers Exclusively as opposed to others in lower skilled streams Recent program changes may force a change here

9 WHERE ARE WE? Poundmaker Pork Farm Paradise Valley Perkins Farms Red Willow Pork Farm Lewisville Pork Farm SHF Milling Neilburg Pork Farm

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13 Battle Creek Finisher

14 Sunhaven Farms Lessons Learned from Immigrant Workers So Far Many Are Naïve About Life and Work in Canada People Need Predictability Around Their Circumstances and Their Future Employers Need to Alter Their Views of Some Basic Workplace Practices Like Holidays ie Trips Home Important To Clearly Define Expectations Establish the language of the workplace Establish rules on interpersonal relationships

15 Sunhaven Farms Lessons Learned from Immigrant Workers So Far People Need To Develop Relationships and Find a Community Can happen inside the farm or outside They will seek it out so if its not facilitated they will find it somewhere else. Sometime difficult in rural setting A cultural critical mass helps reduce feelings of isolation and eventual failure.

16 Sunhaven Farms Hiring and Retention Striking A Balance in Hiring and Training How many ambitious university educated people can you keep for the long term? How do you identify career minded people vs workers? What are the cultural influences on management aspirations and ability to assume responsibility and supervise others? Some backgrounds seem less likely to want the stress that goes with management Some backgrounds don t lend themselves to Canadian standards of personal respect and loyalty

17 Sunhaven Farms Our Labour Complement Total Farm Staff 70 Native Canadians 26 Imports 44 Permanent Residents 13 TFW s - 31

18 Sunhaven Farms Countries of Origin Philippines 24 Mexico 6 Ukraine 4 Serbia 2 Hungary -2 India, Honduras, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Romania 1 each

19 Success Stories Jose Delgado From Costa Rica (TFW) Sunhaven Farms University Educated Trained in U.S. Joined us in 2013 Moving Into Farm Management Position in November

20 Sunhaven Farms Success Stories Moshe Tipan From Ecuador (PR) University Educated in Honduras Trained in U.S. Joined us in 2011 Farm Manager Since 2013

21 Success Stories David Morales From Mexico(PR) Sunhaven Farms University Educated Joined us in 2008 Started As Technician Assistant Farm Manager Since 2013

22 Sunhaven Farms Success Stories Have had the most luck retaining people who genuinely want to advance Not unique to immigrants More luck with people from Mexico / Latin America in terms of significant advancement We Are Very Lucky To Have Them

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