n THE CARILLON STEINBACH, MAN. C6
n www.thecarillon.com THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2025
FLASHBACK
July 27, 1994
CARILLON ARCHIVES In this aerial photo, semi-trailers next to the building at the Tritek Farms construction site look like toy trucks, indicating the massive size of the first of two Janzen/Vielfaure barns being built to house a 2,500 farrow-to-weanling hog operation. Huge Tritek barns reflect a bright future for hogs
The shopping list brings a gleam to the eye of concrete suppliers like C.T. Loewen and Sons, who won this contract. Twenty-eight hun- dred cubic yards or 2,000 cubic metres is a lot of concrete by any measure, considering an average house basement needs only about 40 cubic metres. To get an idea of just how huge these two barns are, before they have finished, crews will have poured enough concrete for all the basements in Steinbach’s South- land Estates housing subdivision. The Terra-Nova crew can’t wait for one of two 75-foot by 200- foot slabs for the second barn to be poured, so they can play floor hockey on their lunch breaks, Rempel chuckled. Plywood by the truckload The Tritek barns will use 8,000 sheets of plywood compared to the 500 sheets needed for the barn expansion to house 1,200 feeders that Rempel’s crew recently built on Provincial Road 303. “Here they deliver a semi-trailer load of plywood at a time, while we are used to getting plywood by the lift.” The building, dwarfing semi-trailers parked next to it, is nearly clad in metal as workers hurry to meet the Aug. 1 deadline. At the site, earlier in July, Rempel was confident they would be able meet the deadline. Depending on the weather of course, he was quick to add. With a building this size, both wind and rain are elements that have to be contended with. More than one otherwise ideal day was spoiled because the wind made it impossible to use the crane to put up rafters.
We’ve hit some of those times, but never to the extent our father did.” Vielfaure is confident the peaks and the valleys will never again be as severe and sees a real potential for growth in the hog industry in this area. New regulations governing live- stock operations are a positive factor too, as producers now know exactly where they stand. Their op- erations, presently three 600-sow barns on separates sites between La Broquerie and Marchand, have the advantage of being secluded from their neighbors. The Viel- faures have not experienced any of the opposition others have faced nearer urban centres. The Vielfaures recently bought 160 acres for the new farrowing op- eration and there is plenty of land for sale in the area for further ex- pansion. For their part, neighbor- ing farmers are more than willing to take the hog manure as fertilizer for their own forage crops. Janzen agrees it is this shared view of the future that got the two operations together in this latest major expansion. The Vielfaures had started planning for barns for 1,500 sows last August, but when they heard Janzen might be inter- ested, they approached him with the idea of joining forces and add- The Vielfaures and Janzen are not the only ones reaping the benefits of the bright future of an expand- ing hog industry in the Southeast. A steady stream of trucks deliver- ing material, a long row of vehicles parked waiting for workers to fin- ish a shift, and two dozen carpen- ters enjoying a brief outdoor coffee break in the sunshine, all reflect ing another 1,000 sows. Boosting the economy
“Things go quickly when the weather is right. It is amazing how much can be accomplished in a week without interruptions.” Rempel is certainly enjoying the present building boom in the hog industry, although he admits there is a certain amount of pressure in juggling the number of inter-con- nected projects. A Borland Road barn had to be finished the day before the July long weekend to be ready for stock, due to arrive the following Tues- day. And the first of the two Tritek barns must be ready for gilts right after the August long weekend, he explained. The La Broquerie area is leading the way in both expansion and in- novation in a very competitive hog industry. Last year, Elite Swine Inc. built the first isolation barn in Manitoba near Marchand and now there are four 4,500 sq.ft. barns on that site. Bruce Campbell, owner of Land- mark Feeds Group, which just cel- ebrated its 40th anniversary, looks to the hog sector and producers like Janzen and the Vielfaures for a continued significant increase in their percentage of the feed com- pany business. Manitoba Agriculture Minister Harry Enns describes pork pro- duced in Manitoba as the best in the world, saying the multi-mil- lion-dollar market opportunity will create thousands of new jobs on Manitoba farms and in processing industries. Farrel Rempel at Terra-Nova, and Curt Loewen and Roger Loewen at C.T. Loewen and Sons hope the ag- riculture minister is right. After all, it’s good for their businesses too.
the boost a project like this gives the local economy. Construction supervisor Farrel Rempel of Terra-Nova Construc- tion said barns, hog barns in par- ticular, are becoming a large part of his business. “We build four to six houses a year, mostly for friends, and may- be a shop or two, but mostly it is barns.” The smaller of the Tritek Farms’ two barns, slated to be ready for gilts early in August, rises 30 feet from floor to peak, stretches out 188 feet in width and is 282 feet deep. The larger farrowing facility, to be ready by October, will be 155 feet wide and 400 feet long. The two barns will total 115,000 square feet, covering approximately three acres. That is just slightly smaller than the regional high school in Steinbach. These, of course, are the largest barns Rempel and his crew have tackled, although they have a num- ber of other projects currently on the go. Terra Nova’s forte is that they of- fer a complete package by bidding on materials and labour, as well as the supplying and installing of equipment, Rempel explained. In the case of the Vielfaure/ Janzen facility, the Vielfaure broth- ers have made all the penning themselves and will be buying part of the feeding system, but have manufactured some parts of that as well. The material package and labor for the barns will run close to $2 million and when equipment and stocks are added in, the total in- vestment will be nearer $4.5 mil- lion.
by WES KEATING O nly modesty prevents La Broquerie’s Vielfaure broth- ers and the boss of Boss Hogs Farms from agreeing they are on their way to becoming Manito- ba’s largest hog producers. A pair of huge barns under con- struction southwest of La Broque- rie will house 2,500 sows in a far- row-to-weanling operation. Once the facility, a joint venture known as Tritek Farms, is in full produc- tion, Don Janzen and Paul, Denis and Claude Vielfaure will be sup- plying 150,000 weanlings to the feeder market annually. Janzen, who started in the poul- try business with his father and ex- panded into hogs in 1986, says the challenges of a non-supply-man- agement commodity are different. Not being controlled like dairy or poultry, both production numbers and efficiency have to be there to succeed in a wide open market, he emphasized. Janzen bought his father’s farm in 1980 and currently has 2,500 sows on three separate locations; one near Randolph, one near New Bothwell and a third 10 miles south of Steinbach. Paul, Denis and Claude Vielfaure grew up amid the expanding Viel- faure family farm operation, learn- ing valuable lessons on how to survive the lows from their father, Albert. Paul Vielfaure said they are do- ing many of the same things their father did—expanding, working on inflation, taking advantage of low- er feed costs and interest rates. “What really doesn’t mix is when the price of hogs is down and feed costs and interest rates are way up.
CARILLON ARCHIVES Don Janzen and Roger and Curt Loewen have a roof over their heads as the final rafters ar being lifted into place by a crane at the first of two Tritek hog barns is nearing completion in the La Broquerie area.
CARILLON ARCHIVES Denis and Paul Vielfaure, Don Janzen and Claude Vielfaure discuss the delivery schedule for a couple of thousand cubic metres of concrete with C.T. Loewen and Sons president Curt Loewen.
CARILLON ARCHIVES Carpenters maneuver another huge rafter into place as the crane operator gently lowers it to the top of the walls of the Tritek barn.
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