An American company’s plans to build a multi-million dollar fat
substitute plant in Saskatchewan have fallen through.
Two years ago a Pennsylvania company called Viritech Inc. was talking
seriously about building an esterified propoxylated glycerin plant in
the province, capable of producing 45 million kilograms of fat
substitute a year.
A company spokesperson said the plant could eventually require up to 10
percent of the province’s canola and high erucic rapeseed production.
But the American firm’s ambitious plans haven’t come to fruition.
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“The company has been disbanded,” said Paul Fedek, vice-president of
regulatory and scientific affairs with POS Pilot Plant Corp., which
would have provided technical assistance for the venture.
He said Viritech had funding from American investors but couldn’t get
the additional venture capital it required from Saskatchewan
governments and local investors.
As the project developed, the focus changed from using canola and
rapeseed to make a plant-based fat substitute similar to Olestra, to
building a facility that would make an additive for diesel fuels. The
revised plan would also have required “a fair tonnage” of locally grown
canola, Fedek said.
But the company only possessed processing technology. It didn’t have
infrastructure and adequate funding, which eventually sank the project.
Talk of building a plant that would eventually employ 100 people and
consume between one and 10 percent of the province’s canola and high
erucic rapeseed had rural economic development officers salivating.
Trevor Peterson, rural economic development officer with Saskatchewan’s
Big Gully Regional Economic Development Authority Inc., was one of many
community promoters interested in wooing the American company. But he’s
even more interested in a different kind of rural development.
“I don’t think attracting processing is as important as having our own
producers doing it.”
He wants to see more producer involvement in things like ethanol
plants, feedlots, pelleting plants and inland terminals.
“Anything like that where the producer doesn’t have to haul his grain
500 kilometres just to get a good price.”
Peterson is calling on the province to provide investment tax breaks
for such projects, similar to what people get for putting money into
registered retirement savings plans.
He also wants each community to have a fair crack at attracting a
facility like an ethanol plant rather than projects going to those that
have “the best friends in government.”
Fedek is skeptical of ethanol plans that hinge on hundreds of thousands
more cattle coming into the province. Feedlots are often closely linked
to ethanol plants.
“Where are you going to get them? Where are you going to eat them?
Who’s going to process them? The mechanism isn’t there,” Fedek said.
