SASKATOON – A farmer-owned plant that cleans, processes and markets its own special crops turns one year old next month.
Eagle Creek Processing, of Rosetown in west-central Saskat-
chewan, is marking the occasion with a 120,000 bushel expansion to its storage facility.
The producer-owned plant competes with larger grain companies and co-operatives to process and sell special crops.
Tight deadlines caused by occasional storage shortages prompted Eagle Creek to add 12 new bins to guard against possible shipping delays.
Lack of storage forced the company to rely on last-minute deliveries by farmers just before shipments were due.
“We could have made it work in a perfect world but that’s not always possible,” said plant manager Lanny Stevens.
“You run into a snowstorm or transportation problems and it can literally come down to hours and you never have enough storage during harvest.”
The plant is able to clean and bag 140,000 tonnes of lentils, peas, canaryseed and mustard.
It didn’t reach capacity this year, Stevens said, because poor weather and construction difficulties delayed operations.
