Pork factory. HyLife’s sprawling factory in Windom. Words had been out around town that the plant no longer fit HyLife’s master plan to control every aspect of the pork industyr from breeding to fattening to butchering to packaging to wholesaling and reducing costs at every step.
Mystery buyer: Who is it? Why vacate Windom?
WINDOM, Minn. — The Manitoba -based pork producer HyLife Foods told employees that it has sold its Windom plant and that its 1,000 Windom employees won’t have jobs anymore. The layoffs will be sudden – this week on Friday Many Windom workers are immigrants on temporary H-2B visas. These non-citizens must find new jobs within 10 days or leave the country. These workers have no labor union representation or protection. The layoffs also are a blow to the economy of Windom, population 5,000, and left Minnesota and Iowa pork farmers floundering in uncertainty. In announcing the layoffs HyLife didn’t name the new buyer but said: “We are told that the buyer does not intend to retain employees at the Windom plant.”
HyLife profile
HyLife, once kown as Hytek, purchased the Windom plant in 2020 from billionaire entrepreneur Glen Taylor of Mankato. HyLife then was tself aquired by by Charoen Pokphand Foods, an agribusiness based in Thailand, and the Japanese conglomerate Itochu. Although now foreign-owned, HyLife’s headquarters remain in rural Broquerie, Manitoba, 45 miles southeast of Winnepeg. The comany calls itself Canada’s leading pork producer and global exporter of quality pork products. In all HyLife has 5,600 employees – at least before jettisoning the Windom plant. HyLife has been recognized with Platinum Status as one of Canada’s 50 best-managed companies.
Feel-good logo. HyLife claims its logo represents its commitment to integrating farm-to-wholesale vertical integration.