The University of Saskatchewan has bought a feed processing plant in northwestern Saskatchewan.
It will use the facility to establish what it expects to be a state of the art feed research centre aimed at improving feed processing techniques and expanding markets for feed grain and other feed ingredients produced in Western Canada.
The plant, in North Battleford, Sask., was previously owned by Stomp Pork Farm Ltd., and became available after the financially troubled hog company was granted protection from creditors in early 2008.
Kim Anderson, a Saskatoon lawyer who acted as restructuring counsel for Stomp Pork, confirmed that the university took ownership of the facility at the end of February.
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Sources familiar with the sale say the university will conduct a multimillion-dollar retrofit of the plant and will operate the refurbished facility as a national feed research institute involved in advanced feed research and the production of specialized livestock feeds.
The plant is expected to supply feed to a variety of Saskatchewan based research facilities including the Western Beef Development Centre and the Prairie Swine Centre, as well as dairy, poultry and aquaculture research units at the U of S.
It will also produce bulk value-added rations for feedlots, hog barns and other commercial feeding operations throughout Canada and abroad.
The university was expected to announce details of the deal in early May along with the name of a major commercial tenant that will rent commercial processing capacity at the plant, provide operational expertise and maintain the plant on a contract basis.
The total cost to establish the feed research centre, known as the Feed Technology Research Facility (FTRF), is estimated at $12.5 million, which includes the purchase price of the processing plant, upgrades to existing processing equipment and the expansion of office and administrative space to facilitate university researchers and private sector collaborators.
The court-approved sale price of the plant was $3.3 million, according to documents posted on the website of Meyers Norris Penney Ltd., which was responsible for monitoring creditor protection proceedings during Stomp’s financial restructuring.
Construction of a new feed research facility has been on the university’s radar for some time.
More than two years ago, U of S officials said they were hoping to break ground on a new facility in the summer of 2007.
At that time, the plant was expected to be built adjacent to the campus in Saskatoon, but cost overruns delayed the project. The acquisition of the former Stomp facility is expected to reduce capital costs by several million dollars.
When the FTRF project was initially announced, university officials said it would handle a range of feed ingredients including cereal grains, oilseeds, pulse crops, canola meal, distiller grains and other processing byproducts.
Production of canola meal and distillers grain is expected to increase significantly as expansion occurs in the province’s ethanol, biodiesel and canola crushing industries.
The proposed feed research facility could potentially add millions of dollars of value to abundant, low-value feedstocks that are produced on the Prairies and exported as raw unprocessed feed.
