Lakeside Packers is a beef

Beef

Beef is the culinary name for meat from bovines, especially domestic cattle. Beef can be harvested from cows, bulls, heifers or steers. It is one of the principal meats used in the cuisine of the Middle East , Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Europe and the United States, and is also important in...

 producer based in Brooks, Alberta

Brooks, Alberta

Brooks is a city in southeast Alberta, Canada surrounded by the County of Newell. It is located on Highway 1 and the Canadian Pacific Railway, approximately southeast of Calgary, and northwest of Medicine Hat. The city has an elevation of .- History :The area that is now Brooks was originally...

. They are the operating company of Lakeside Farm Industries, Ltd. and are a subsidiary of XL Foods

XL Foods

- History :XL Foods grew from a collection of ranches, feedlots and feed mills into one of the foremost Canadian-owned and operated beef processors in Western Canada....

, a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 company. However, For more information see "Press Release"http://www.xllakeside.com/Release022709.pdf by XL Foods CFO, Patrick S. Bieleny.

BSE Aid

As of June 2004, Lakeside Packers had received roughly $33 million Canadian dollars in financial aid from the Government of Alberta since a cow with bovine spongiform encephalopathy

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy , commonly known as mad-cow disease, is a fatal neurodegenerative disease in cattle that causes a spongy degeneration in the brain and spinal cord. BSE has a long incubation period, about 30 months to 8 years, usually affecting adult cattle at a peak age onset of...

 was found on an Alberta farm in May 2003.

2005 Labour dispute

Lakeside Packers was unionized under UFCW as of the early 1980s, and members were local Alberta residents who strongly supported their union local. But then there was a strike that began in 1984 and lasted about 18 months. It is not said how the union came to be decertified in that time.

Workers at the plant later certified the UFCW

United Food and Commercial Workers

The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union is a labor union representing approximately 1.3 million workers in the United States and Canada in many industries, including agriculture, health care, meatpacking, poultry and food processing, manufacturing, textile, G4S Security, chemical...

Local 401 as their bargaining agent. Following a round of talks in 2005 the workers voted in favour of strike action, eventually settling after 3 weeks of job action.

Sale to XL Foods

As of March 2009, Lakeside Farm Industries, Ltd was sold by Tyson to XL Foods, it is reported that Lakeside and its assets were sold to XL Foods Inc for approximately $107 million.