A company from Pakistan has chosen Altona, Man., as the location to build a $9 million processing plant for chickpeas, lentils and beans.
Zeb Rice, which sells basmati and jasmine rice to 17 European countries, selected the southern Manitoba community after considering several locations in Man-itoba and Saskatchewan.
The key factor in the decision was not location, but people.
“The local people we met here, they made the big difference,” said Makhdoom Abbas, chief executive officer of Zeb Rice, who was in Altona March 7 to officially announce the new pulse processing facility.
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“We (got) extremely good help and assistance from the people of this region. You should always go to a place where you find good local partners.”
The 2,250 sq. metre plant will be built in a partnership between Zeb Rice and the Sunbelt Development Group, an economic development agency representing the town of Altona and three surrounding municipalities.
“One of the things we don’t realize in North America is how the rest of the world only deals with friends. You have to become a friend first,” said John Falk, reeve of the RM of Rhineland, one of the Sunbelt partners.
“That’s kind of the approach we took with this and I think things have worked out really well.”
The processing plant will add to the already strong business sector in Altona, he said. Bunge operates a canola crushing plant in the mostly Mennonite community, also home to Friesens Printers, a book and yearbook printer with more than 600 employees.
Construction of the new plant is expected to begin this spring, with the ambitious goal of completing the project by fall. The plant will employ about 30 people to clean, process and bag 20,000 tonnes a year of pulse crops.
“We will be doing the complete product handling here. Milling, processing, packaging and everything,” said Abbas.
The plan, he said, is to produce small bags of one or two kilograms of lentils, chickpeas and other pulses for grocery store shelves.
In his presentation to a crowd of 50 at Altona’s recreation complex, Abbas said after processing, the vast majority of the Canadian grown chickpeas and lentils would be exported.
“We’ll be serving our European customers from this plant.”
Abbas’ father founded Zeb Rice in Lahore, Pakistan, 35 years ago. In the last several years the company has expanded, building a rice processing plant in Sweden and a North American distribution centre in Belleville, Ont.
