A $12 million bailout for the Atlantic Beef Products plant on Prince Edward Island is on hold waiting for the company to hold up its end of the agreement, CBC reported Thursday.
As per an agreement announced in December, the federal government was to invest $6 million through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA), and the P.E.I., New Brunswick and Nova Scotia governments were to put up $2 million each.
But the plant, which has lost $10 million since it opened three years ago, is still losing money and facing a shortage of slaughter animals, and the only money it’s seen is an advance on P.E.I.’s share, CBC reported.
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The funding was to allow the company to develop “higher-value, differentiated beef products for international, national and local markets.” One of the conditions of the investment was for ABP management to draft a marketing plan to that end.
The company, run by the Atlantic Beef Producers Co-operative, was also supposed to hire a new CEO and restructure its board and that hasn’t happened either, CBC reported. It’s presumed the money won’t come until ABP meets those conditions.
The December funding announcement came after the P.E.I. government, which had already invested in the plant and built its waste treatment facility, said its most recent cash infusion to ABP in June would be its last unless other governments also began to chip in.
