REGINA – The growing hog industry in Western Canada has prompted BASF to expand its livestock feed ingredient business here.
New plants in Regina and Abbotsford, B.C., officially opened last week.
Andreas Franke, manager of animal nutrition for BASF Canada,
said the German-owned company bought the Prairie Microtech plant in Regina in 1995, but realized it would have to be upgraded.
“The writing was on the wall about the increase in swine production,” he said.
The end of the Crow Benefit grain transportation subsidy would make livestock feeding more economically viable in Western Canada, he said.
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Also, improvements in hog production had led to faster growth rates and animal metabolisms. To keep up, hog diets needed vitamin and trace mineral supplementation.
“So BASF changed its philosophy. Instead of selling vitamins as a single product, why not sell them in the form of premixes?” he said.
Cost in millions
BASF spent $8 million on the Regina and Abbotsford plants.
In Regina, the vitamin production system got an automated batch control system, new packaging equipment, pneumatic transfer equipment and larger building.
Doug Vanjoff, Regina plant manager, said the plant measures and mixes ingredients that come from other BASF plants or other sources.
The preparation of the premix is a little like making a cake from scratch, measuring ingredients, sifting and mixing. But at the BASF plant it is an automated process controlled by computer. Most of the 15 workers are employed packaging the material for sale to feed companies.
The plant does not deal directly with livestock producers.
About 60 percent of the plant’s output goes to the hog industry and the rest is divided among poultry, dairy and beef.
The Abbotsford plant, about an hour’s drive east of Vancouver, will serve mainly the poultry and aquaculture industries.
