Drake Meats is expecting a strong financial return from a new meat processing plant being built on a five-acre parcel of land at 71st Street and Lipsett Crescent in the city’s north end.
Farm Credit Canada, the Golden Opportunities Fund and some local investors are funding the new facility, which is already under construction and slated for completion in June 2026. By that fall, there will be some production with a gradual increase over a 12-to-18-month period.
The family-owned company already has a 35,000 square foot provincially inspected meat processing facility in the community of Drake, about 140 kilometres southeast of Saskatoon. It can sell meat products only in Saskatchewan under current regulations. For the past eight years, Drake Meats has leased space at the Agri-Food Processing Centre in Saskatoon. It is a federally inspected facility allowing the company to slowly expand its marketing network to other provinces with the focus on Western Canada.
“It has been an instrumental part of our plan to building our own federal plant was the opportunity to lease some production space first so we can establish buying relationships,” said Cameron Johnson, executive chair of Drake Meats. “Those efforts have been successful and now we have significantly more demand for our products than we are able to produce in the leased space.”
Products are offered in major grocery chains across Western Canada including Co-op, Costco, Loblaws, Walmart, Sobeys, Safeway and Save-On-Foods.
“We will have a state-of-the-art modern plant with a new design that will allow us to process much more volume per square foot. We expect to grow our revenues by at least three or four times through this new plant,” Johnson said.
Drake Meats has 40 employees working in the leased space at the Agri-Food Processing Plant. When the plant on 71st Street is finished later next year, those employees will make the move to the new facility. The plant will initially have between 70 to 80 workers, with plans to increase up to 200 staff members as operations ramp up. At full capacity, it will be capable of producing more than eight million kilograms of pork and beef products annually—including sausage, bacon, hams, jerky and deli meats.
Drake Meats started business in 1949 and the majority shareholders will continue to be the Ediger family.
