There is a will in Manitoba to put thousands more acres into irrigated potato production.
Now there is a way.
Idaho-based J.R. Simplot Co. announced last week it will build a $120 million potato
processing plant at Portage la Prairie, Man.
Once completed, the plant will create demand for 5.5 million hundredweight of raw
potatoes. That’s the equivalent of about 20,000 acres of potato production.
A survey released this year by the Association of Irrigators in Manitoba suggests the
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province’s growers will rise to the challenge. The survey showed Manitoba producers want
to put an additional 32,000 acres into irrigated potato production in the next few years.
The large potato processing plant announced by Simplot will be able to process much of
that expanded production.
“There’s a fair bit of excitement,” said Doug Smallwood, manager of the irrigators
association, describing the reaction to Simplot’s announcement.
“The growers are happy and they’re prepared to do their part.”
Plant construction is expected to start early next summer and could be completed within a
year.
Employing about 230 people, the processing facility will produce about 300 million pounds
of french fries and other frozen potato products. The plant will be designed to accommodate
an expansion of up to twice that capacity.
“We’re confident we’ll have a good supply of quality raw potatoes,” said Fred Zerza, a
Simplot spokesperson.
Grower interest in expanding irrigated potato production was one of the main incentives for
building at Portage, Zerza said.
The interest and co-operation shown by the province and local municipal governments were
also incentives, he said. The Portage location will enable Simplot to deliver competitively
priced potato products to the company’s eastern United States customers.
McCain Foods already owns a large potato processing plant at Portage. The McCain plant
underwent a major expansion in the mid-1990s.
Potato grower Kevin Smith doubts the presence of two major processors in Portage will
create the kind of competition that will drive local prices above the North American market.
Prices usually are set each year once a couple of grower associations sign supply contracts
with the major processors.
But Smith was not discounting the effect Simplot’s announcement will have on the
provincial economy. The province estimated last week that over the next 10 years,
Manitoba’s economy will grow by $650 million because of the Simplot project.
The plant will secure Portage’s reputation as the french fry capital of Canada. It could also
put Manitoba ahead of Prince Edward Island as the country’s leading potato processor.
The plant at Portage will represent Simplot’s third major investment in Manitoba.
The company built a nitrogen fertilizer manufacturing plant in Brandon in 1967. A multi-
million dollar upgrade in 1998 doubled the plant’s capacity.
Simplot and Nestle Canada also co-own Midwest Foods, a potato processing plant at
Carberry.
There were some expectations earlier this year that Simplot and Nestle would announce an
expansion of the Midwest Foods plant. But with a $120 million project on the drawing
board for Portage, Simplot has no further plans to expand the Carberry facility, Zerza said.
Manitoba premier Gary Doer promised there will be Clean Environment Commission
hearings before the new potato processing plant is licensed by the province.
The facility at Portage is expected to be the first potato plant in Canada to use an
environmentally friendly biogas recovery and reuse system. Company officials said that will
significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the plant.
The new infrastructure needed for the plant will total $21 million on-site and $15.45 million
off-site.
The province will commit $8.65 million in new water and sewage infrastructure, most of
which will be off-site.
Simplot owns and operates 11 potato processing plants, including four in Idaho, two in
Washington state, one each in Oregon and North Dakota, two in Australia and one in China.
The company’s principal businesses include fertilizer, farming, cattle feeding, turf and
horticulture, and other agriculture-related ventures.
The firm has annual sales of about $3 billion and employs more than 13,000 people in
Canada, the United States, Mexico, Australia and China.
