Regina pulse processor AGT Foods plans to bulk up its portfolio in the plant-based ingredients business with a new oat milling operation in central Saskatchewan.
The company on Thursday announced it would start construction “immediately” on the new operation, to be housed in an expansion of its existing processing plant just east of Aberdeen, about 35 km northeast of Saskatoon.
Oat product lines at the new operation, which AGT said it expects to have up and running by the end of 2022, would include oat groats, flours and other milled products for plant-based foods, “specialty” ingredients and feed products.
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A company spokesperson said via email Friday the new plant would have capacity to process up to 60,000 tonnes of oats per year.
“Oats are a major cereal crop for Saskatchewan with significant production levels, and AGT is already exporting thousands of tonnes of oats each year,” CEO Murad Al-Katib said Thursday in the company’s release.
“Combined with our expertise in value-added milling and the production of high-quality plant-based ingredient products, we have a real advantage in creating value for our producers in this new product area.”
The Aberdeen plant was set up as Horizon Seed Processors in the mid-1990s, cleaning and packing lentils, peas and mustard for export. It was taken over by what’s now AGT in the mid-’00s.
AGT said its Abderdeen site is also in the midst of “Saskatchewan’s most productive oat growing region, where approximately 30 per cent of Canada’s oats are produced” and has direct access to Canadian National Railway (CN) track.
Canada overall booked a significant decline in oat production in 2021, with Statistics Canada most recently estimating a crop of 2.6 million tonnes, down from 4.6 million in 2020 and 4.2 million in 2019.
Oat acres in Saskatchewan alone were estimated to be down 11 per cent in 2021 from 2020. However, drought in 2021 knocked Saskatchewan’s estimated oat production further down to 1.1 million tonnes, compared to 2.3 million in 2020 and 2.2 million in 2019.
Oats are “very complementary to pulses in their amino acid profile, which increases their digestibility and gives them highly desirable characteristics for extruded products like snacks and pasta, bakery applications and the beverage industry,” Al-Katib said in Thursday’s release.
“With demand strong and growing for innovative plant-based products in the marketplace, and with a number of new products being offered in our system utilizing oats, including extruded flours and blends, snacks and pastas with oats and pulses, we expect that our existing and new customers will find our unique oat-derived products to provide significant advantages for their products as well.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network
