An intense scarlet glow warns of extreme heat applied to the grain flowing along the conveyor belt.
Infrared energy radiating from ceramic tiles, just like on the space shuttle, precook the grain so the consumer has to boil peas for only 20 minutes instead of the usual two hours.
In a world increasingly obsessed with time, convenience and scarce resources, this processing line at InfraReady Products is an ideal complement to Canada’s growing pulse industry, says its general manager and part owner Mark Pickard.
The plant is the only one of its kind in Canada, Pickard said recently at the relaunch of the company.
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Formed in 1994 by Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, the company has experienced impressive growth. Sales climbed from $250,000 in 1994-95 to about $1.5 million last year.
The business was going well, but Bill Hunt, executive vice-president of the pool’s food and industrial services group, said Sask Pool felt its resources would be better directed at its initiatives in hogs, CanOat, CSP Foods and CanAmera oilseed processing.
“I wouldn’t want anybody to interpret this that we are stepping away from our thrust in value-added,” Hunt said.
The pool’s decision to divest opened an opportunity for new investment. An unnamed pulse farmer and Pickard bought out the pool. And the Saskatchewan Agri-Food Equity Fund invested $300,000 to help the company expand its export market and buy equipment.
The company uses infrared energy, or micronizing, to pre-cook cereals, legumes and oilseeds.
The process “has more in common with sun drying than microwave. Infrared is the same energy we get when we stand in the sun and absorb the heat,” Pickard said.
Value-added example
An example of the value the process can add to grain was a rye product produced for CSP Foods.
A European company wanted a rye product for a multi-grain bread. Malted rye was expensive. But InfraReady could cook rye, producing a similar product in taste and texture, but which could also absorb more water, a trait bakers want.
“This converted a $200 a tonne commodity like rye into a $500 a tonne product ingredient, which results in a $2,000 a tonne bakery mix, which yields $20,000 in retail baked products,” Pickard said.
Products processed at InfraReady are found in everything from Gerber’s wild rice baby food to pre-cooked cereals for weanling pigs.
The company even processes a cereal product used to bind lava rocks, he said.
But the biggest market potential lies in exported legumes.
Already sales are divided on the basis of one-third Canada, one-third United States and one-third off shore. But Pickard thinks the U.S. and offshore markets hold more promise.
“We produce a lot of lentils, peas and beans in Canada and almost all of them are going out of the country without much value put into them. We need to follow where these things are being exported and offer them the value-added product.
“So where Canadian peas are going we want to be there. Where beans are, we want to be there.”
One of the benefits of pre-cooked grains is that it takes much less energy for the consumer to prepare the meal. That’s important in developing countries where firewood might have to be gathered to boil water.
InfraReady has already been involved in a 36-tonne aid shipment of pulses to the African country of Sierra Leone organized by World Vision.
It has also given a precooked breakfast cereal product to the Friendship Inn, a Saskatoon charity.
