04/26/06 Canadian company buys Idaho packing plant

XL Foods of Canada is buying the Swift meat packing plant in Nampa and another facility in Nebraska. Swift had closed the Nampa plant last August after complaining of poor market conditions and a lack of cattle to process. Many of the 400 employees who lost jobs still haven't found employment. The XL Foods buyout is the first venture into the US by the Canadian company which processes more than 450 thousand head of cattle per year. Can XL Foods find a market? How about supply? US Department of Agriculture economist Ron Gustafson says there's five percent more beef today than a year ago. GUSTAFSON "So overall supplies are going to continue to expand. We look for some fairly sharp increases from a very tight situation we had a year ago and continued fairly large supplies as we move into the summer." That's good news for consumers who are already paying less for beef than they did one year ago. GUSTAFSON "And we're already down about 15, 20 cents from where we were in 2005." Gustafson believes people will start cutting back on their driving, thanks to rising gasoline prices. GUSTAFSON "Are consumers going to take another trip out on the weekend to go out to a restaurant or are they going to buy a little better cut of meat and just barbecue at home?" We won't know that answer until next fall. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott