Goose King’s reign ends

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This article was published 06/02/2009 (6171 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Goose King of Canada is clipping his wings.

Don Salkeld, longtime owner of Canada’s’s only federally licensed goose-processing plant — Northern Goose Processors Ltd. — has put his Teulon-based business up for sale.

Salkeld is asking $3.5 million for the operation and a related feather-processing business — Northern Goose Down Inc., which manufactures high-end, down-filled pillows, comforters, duvets and mattress-toppers it sells over the Internet and to hotels in Canada and the United States.

Salkeld said the businesses, 42,000-square feet of industrial space, 2,100 square feet of office space and three acres of land have been on the market for a month.

He and agent Elaine Cowan of Avison Young Commercial Real Estate (Manitoba) Inc. in Winnipeg said they’ve received several inquiries.

Salkeld, 60, said he’s selling Northern Goose because, after 33 years — he founded the company in 1976 — he’s ready for a change.

“The plant is there and it’s in good shape… and it’s time for somebody else to take it and run with it.”

He said he owns about 20 acres of land on Lake Manitoba, and he’d like to develop it as cottage properties.

Salkeld said he’s optimistic he’ll find a buyer for Northern Goose, noting he recently installed $500,000 of equipment to process turkeys as well as geese, which will make the company more of a year-round operation.

With the upgrades, the plant can process up to six million kilograms of turkeys a year, and up to one million kilograms of geese. Salkeld said it also remains the only federally registered goose-processing plant in Canada and one of only two turkey-processing plants in Manitoba (Granny’s Poultry is the other).

Although the plant hasn’t been processing birds for three months, a staff of three to five employees continues to produce down-filled bedding products from feathers that were left over from last fall’s goose-processing run.

The products include goose-down pillows that cost up to US$197, and goose-down comforters that sell for up to US$797, with a 360 thread-count and a cotton Sateen cover with shine-rope piping.

At the height of its operations in the mid-’90s, Northern Goose was processing up to 240,000 geese a year, employed 75 to 80 workers during its fall processing period, and had 20 to 25 farmers and Hutterite colonies supplying birds.

But the good times ended in mid-1998 when a dispute with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency led to North Goose being removed from a list of food processors authorized to ship processed goose meat to Europe, which had become a major market.

Salkeld sued for $10 million, sparking an eight-year court battle that saw the company’s production plunge by 75 per cent due to the loss of its overseas markets; at the same time, banks were reluctant to lend it money until the dispute was resolved.

The case was settled in 2006 when a court ordered the federal agency to pay Northern Goose $8.5 million in damages and the firm was allowed to resume shipments to Europe.

Salkeld said it would likely take the new owner about a year to rebuild the breeding stock and get goose production back up to pre-lawsuit levels. He said there are still plenty of growers willing to raise geese or turkeys, and many of its former employees would also likely return — especially if it became a year-round operation.

Teulon Mayor Bert Campbell said he’d love to see that happen because it would mean 70 to 80 new full-time jobs for the Interlake community.

“I certainly don’t like seeing the building sitting empty,” Campbell said.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca