A plan to develop oat milk grown and made in Saskatchewan is taking shape following an investment from Protein Industries Canada and partnerships among farmers, processors and marketers.
The investment was announced last fall and Tom Benson from Benson Farms at Raymore, Sask., said the partners are in the early stages of proving out the technology and getting a product on store shelves.
PIC invested $3.6 million, and Mera Food Group, Mera Developments and Benson Farms together invested the same amount. Benson says he is a minority shareholder.
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Mera Food Group of Regina already works with plant-based proteins including oats, lentils, hemp, fababeans and chickpeas.
Benson said he has been growing hemp for a while; Mera knew that and approached him to look at oats’ potential.
“My role is more on the farm side and helping them with procurement,” he said.
Mera has leased space at the Saskatchewan Food Industry Development Centre in Saskatoon where research is underway. Small-scale production is also expected to take place there.
Then, through a partnership separate from the PIC group, Federated Co-operatives Ltd. will market Co-op Gold Pure Oat Beverage on its western Canadian grocery store shelves.
FCL said the oats will be sourced mainly from farm customers who participate in its Grown With Purpose program, which includes sustainable practices and traceability requirements. The oats will have to be grown to certain specifications for the product.
Benson said he will help to procure oats and determine the best varieties for farmers to grow for the product.
“We’re just trying to define what varieties are going to work best,” he said. “Basically, a milling oat or something fairly white and with milling food specs, but we’ll be looking at a number of different varieties to determine what properties work best for the milk.”
Benson said only a small acreage will be required this year.
“Two or three farms can supply enough oats to make a lot of milk,” he explained. “(FCL will) start hopefully before fall with some consumer testing and just see exactly what kind of response they get and how the demand can materialize.”
He said it’s likely other “milks” will be processed at some point, including hemp. Combining hemp and soy milk seemed to work and he said oats and hemp might have promise as well.
“We see it as an opportunity to add value to another Saskatchewan grain and move it up the chain a little bit,” Benson said.
Mera Food president Wayne Goranson did not reply to a request for an interview, but in a news release said the company is excited to continue research, development and commercialization of “hydrodynamic cavitation technology for processing vegetable protein.”
In an interview with CBC Saskatchewan, he said a factory from the Dominican Republic had been disassembled and shipped to Saskatoon to produce the oat milk.
