‘There’s pride in that product’ Three decades of growth gives southern Manitoba pork producer HyLife global reach, reputation Made in Manitoba
By: Aaron Epp Posted: 7:54 PM CDT Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024

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This article was published 10/10/2024 (738 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

STEINBACH — It’s 13,000 kilometres to Steinbach from Bangkok, but even at that distance, the southern Manitoba city’s “It’s worth the trip” slogan rings true for Karan Sangfai.

Sangfai, who was born and raised in the Thai capital, moved to Steinbach with his wife and son in July 2022, after he accepted a role as chief strategy officer at HyLife Ltd., the billion-dollar pork manufacturer based in the keystone province’s automobile city.

“I love Steinbach very much,” Sangfai says, adding he and his family felt at home after just a few weeks. “We found some commonality between the culture here and even the Asian culture: family oriented, respectful.

“The only thing that we actually had to adjust to is winter,” he adds with a smile. “We’re actually still adjusting to that.”

In March, Sangfai assumed the position of president and chief executive officer at HyLife. His first order of business was a comprehensive listening tour that involved visiting various operations across the company so he could connect with employees.

The weeks-long tour included farm sites, distribution centres, wash bays, transportation locations and the company’s state-of-the-art processing plant in Neepawa. He returned from the tour humbled by the depth of insight and passion displayed by team members.

“It was really time well spent to understand our team,” he says.

“It’s a very big team. So I think, in the last few months, we would like to make sure that we actually work together and we mobilize the whole team to (pursue) the same goal and direction.”

Prior to joining HyLife, Sangfai held senior positions at Thai agriculture company CPF (Charoen Pokphand Foods Public Company Ltd.) and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

That HyLife would choose an executive from halfway around the world to lead its operations is indicative of the company’s global nature. While it’s headquartered in southern Manitoba, the company has a presence in hundreds of communities around the world.

It is the largest exporter of fresh, chilled pork into the Asian marketplace. In 2016, it opened a restaurant, HyLife Pork Table, in the Daikanyama district in Tokyo as part of its brand-marketing strategy.

According to chief operating officer Guy Baudry, HyLife’s goal is to be the best food company in the world.

“What I love about the vision is that it’s aspirational,” says Baudry, who has been in the pork industry for 29 years, including two decades at HyLife. “You never get there. So it allows you to continue to dream every single day and drive further and further and further.”

The HyLife dream started 30 years ago.

In 1994, four pig farmers from the Steinbach area — Don Janzen and brothers Paul, Denis and Claude Vielfaure — created VL4/Janzen, a company focused on creating the most efficient and integrated operating structure to produce hogs.

By 2002, the business had changed its name to Hytek and purchased a genetics company, triggering construction of multiplication barns in Canada and the United States. In 2008, it purchased a meat processing plant named Springhill Farms in Neepawa, a large step toward becoming a fully integrated pork company selling products worldwide.

As part of rebranding efforts, the company changed its name again in 2010 to HyLife. That same year, the company started exporting into Japan and creating specialized pork products for the Japanese market.

Two years later, Japanese trading company ITOCHU became a shareholder. In 2019, CPF purchased 50.1 per cent of the company’s shares for $498 million, with ITOCHU continuing to own the remaining 49.9 per cent of shares.

HyLife has full control over its operations, which include feed production, raising animals, transportation, processing, marketing and distribution. It produces 3.6 million hogs annually and processes 3.8 million. Its products and livestock are exported to more than 20 countries, and the company’s annual gross revenue is $1.5 billion.

“In my view, we’ve got a very bright future in front of us, because many countries around the world still cannot produce enough food for their own consumption,” Sangfai says. “(In) Canada, (we have) abundant space and land — it’s a really good country to produce food products, especially pork, to serve the world’s consumers.”

According to federal government statistics, in 2023, Canada exported 6.75 million hogs (of which 60 per cent were weanlings) valued at $635.3 million, as well as 1.35 million tonnes of pork valued at $4.71 billion.

Manitoba Pork reports the province’s share of the Canadian hog market is 30 per cent. More than 22,000 Manitobans rely on the sector for jobs.

As they think about their customers around the world, the leadership at HyLife remain committed to Manitoba.

Last year, the company moved its head office from La Broquerie into a new, 50,000-square-foot facility in Steinbach’s Millbrook Market development. And, in recent years, the company has started making its products available in the province.

De Nardi in Winnipeg, Earl’s Meat Market in Steinbach and Freshmart in Neepawa are a few of the retailers that carry HyLife pork.

“The fact that local Manitobans can source it, buy it — it’s actually been a great thing for us,” Baudry says. “There’s pride in that product.”

None of it would be possible without HyLife’s employees, he stresses. In his view, the best feedback the company gets is when someone notices the effort employees at all levels of the operation put into their work.

“A customer from overseas gets to walk the floor at our food plant in Neepawa and then we always do a debrief after those visits,” Baudry says. “And the biggest compliment we can have is they can see that our people are engaged — that they care about what they do.

“At the farm level, at the manufacturing level, they care about producing a consistent premium quality product.”

aaron.epp@freepress.mb.ca