A company known for killing pests in grain bins wants to sell people a system to get the bugs out of their grain handling systems.
Hedley Technologies Inc., of Vancouver, recently launched the Loss Reductions Strategies Group to offer market evaluation, education and consulting services on stored grain.
The company makes Protect-It, a natural insecticide made from fossilized aquatic organisms that absorbs the outer coating of insects, deyhydrating them.
The president of the company says it’s not enough to sell products for preventing losses in grain.
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“Just having the tool there without educating the people, it’s not sustainable,” said Peter Ormesher.
Cutting losses
Instead, the LRS Group hopes to help companies and countries look at the way grain is handled from the farmer’s bin to the food product and find ways to cut losses and improve quality.
Ormesher hired Chris Van Natto, formerly an entomologist with the Canadian Grain Commission, to set up and run the LRS Group in Winnipeg.
But the group isn’t flogging only its parent company’s product.
Ormesher said it will recommend the best tools and technologies to solve problems ranging from bugs and fungi to rodents and thieves.
“What we’re trying to do in all this is to build really a truly significant company on the basis of Canadian grain quality management tools,” he said.
The idea for the LRS Group came to Ormesher at a conference held by General Mills a year ago.
A supplier for the company used the wrong pesticide on oats. The problem was only detected once the oats had made it through the food processing system.
The company ended up writing off $200 million in cereals.
Ormesher wants the LRS Group to cut its teeth in Canada and the U.S., pulling together homegrown expertise to educate industry players.
He said he floated the concept past grain and food company executives at recent conferences in Winnipeg and Phoenix, Ariz.
“We haven’t heard one negative comment about our mission,” Ormesher said.
“Everybody’s saying, ‘This is coming, this is really important right now, and your timing is excellent.’ “
The LRS Group’s first project will be hiring students to talk to farmers this summer about the importance of cleaning and setting combines to reduce damage to grain kernels, and cleaning and treating bins.
While Ormesher thinks the North American industry sees the value of his idea, he admits it may be tricky to get paid for it here.
He estimates grain storage losses in Canada to be around two to three percent, and slightly higher in the United States.
Ormesher sees the services being most valuable to less-developed countries, which can face losses up to 30 percent.
The LRS Group is already working toward a contract with a grain distributor in Pakistan, where grain storage losses have been estimated at more than $1 billion per year.
Ormesher also wants to see his company triple its research into natural, low-toxic technologies to more than $5 million annually within three years.
He is talking to researchers about products for animal feed and hopes to have new announcements by summer.
Ormesher said the LRS Group will help find new opportunities for its parent company in the course of its consulting work.
