Mexican pork giant eyes strong expansion
One of Mexico’s largest pork producers, Granjas Carroll, has announced plans to double its sow numbers to 137,000 by 2021 in a $550 million expansion project.
According to Victor Manuel Ochoa, CEO of Granjas Carroll, the company also aims to build a $94 million slaughterhouse that can process 600 pigs per hour. In an interview with press agency Reuters, he said, “We’re not just thinking about growth, we’re also going to enter the meat market.”
Once the expansion is complete, the company will produce about 2.8 million pigs every year, which translates into 140,000 tonnes of meat.
Looking for new pork markets
The strong expansion can be seen in the light of the election of US president Donald Trump. Mr Trump vowed to place ‘America First’ and has created some uncertainty over the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). Ochoa said that this causes the company to look for new markets.
Mr Ochoa said that Mexico could grow pork exports to Japan and Korea and could import more pork from producers in the European Union, if trade with the United States would prove more difficult in the future.
Granjas Carroll de Mexico (GCM)
According to its website, GCM settles in the valleys of Perote and Guadalupe Victoria. It has 16 farms in the border states of Veracruz and Puebla. Each of the company’s facilities, according to the website, is built with advanced technology, so it is considered the most high-tech farm in Mexico.
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