NEWS HIGHLIGHT
ACA Loan
The Nova Scotia government has loaned 3.5 million dollars to the province’s
sole remaining poultry processor, ACA Co-operative, headquartered in
Kentville in the Annapolis Valley.
The Nova Scotia government has loaned $3.5 million to the province’s sole remaining poultry processor, ACA Co-operative, headquartered in Kentville in the Annapolis Valley.
The provincial government statement says the loan will help ACA maintain its 650 jobs with an annual payroll of over $25-million. ACA also accounts for a further 650 spin-off jobs.
Founded in 1943, ACA is now the fourth largest farmer’s co-op in Atlantic Canada with a poultry processing plant, breeder barns and hatchery, egg processing unit, retail fuel and farm equipment divisions, and an outlet store.
It is Nova Scotia’s only surviving chicken processor since the closing of the Maple Leaf plant last year in nearby Canard; ACA also slaughters most of the turkeys produced in the province and processes about 25-percent of its eggs.
Within the Atlantic region it supplies large customers such as Co-op Atlantic, Sysco Food Service and Sobeys. ACA also sells into the Ontario and Quebec markets. Its total annual sales are over $110-million.
ACA CEO Sue Payne says the provincial loan will provide her co-operative with a new line of working capital at a time when credit is tight due to the current economic downturn.
The new loan will enable ACA to undertake, she says, "new marketing initiatives."
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