Saskatchewan hog producers will be seriously affected by a temporary shut-down of the Olymel hog slaughtering plant in Red Deer, Alberta.

The closure is due to a recent outbreak of COVID-19 at the plant, which employs 1,800 people.

Its not known how long the shut-down will last.

The manager of SaskPork, Mark Ferguson, says 800,000 Saskatchewan market hogs are shipped to the processing facility each year.

He says the Red Deer facility processes just under half of Saskatchewan’s market hogs.

Ferguson says producers will be introducing emergency plans to deal with growing inventories including finding new markets.

He says prices should not be affected because they are based on U.S. market levels.