Can-Oat Milling is expanding its opportunities with the purchase this month of the ConAgra Oat Milling facility at Barrhead, Alta.
The purchase will enable the company to expand its line of products and to broaden its markets, said Can-Oat president Karl Gerrand.
The purchase price was not released.
The facility at Barrhead is organically certified and processes 25,000 tonnes of finished oat products annually, including flakes, flour and bran. It also processes barley into barley flakes and flour, pot barley and pearl barley.
“It gives us a good opportunity to expand our product offering beyond oats,” Gerrand said. “It’s our first entry into barley based food products.
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“It also gives us the opportunity to enter into organics immediately, which is a market we’ve been watching for a while and had been in the past.”
With the purchase of the Barrhead facility and an expansion of its plant at Portage la Prairie, Man., Can-Oat will have an annual milling capacity of more than 375,000 tonnes.
Expansion of the Portage plant is expected to be complete in early 2007. Can-Oat also has a milling facility at Martensville, Sask.
The Barrhead facility becomes Can-Oat’s third milling operation and its second finishing facility capable of manufacturing flakes, flour and bran.
The purchase places Can-Oat in a competitive position to supply west coast and new offshore markets, Gerrand said.
“We’re quite excited about the opportunity to branch out and enter into some new markets and diversify our marketing plan.
“We’ve got some real good strong demand with our existing customers, which is most of the reason why we’re seeking to expand. Also we see some other markets that we’re not in and we’d like to diversify a little bit.”
Can-Oat Milling is wholly owned by Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. The company describes itself as the largest industrial oat processor in the world.
