Grain Millers wants to put flax into more Saskatchewan crop rotations.
Flax area in our province has dropped substantially over the past couple of decades, but there is still demand for flaxseed from food processing companies.
It has been reported that Grain Millers invested over $30 million in establishing a modern flax processing facility at Delisle, about 45 kilometres southwest of Saskatoon.
It has been in operation since the beginning of the year, and a grand opening is set for Wednesday.
"We really think we can bring flax back to being one of the strong crops on the prairies," said Scott Shiels, grain procurement manager for Grain Millers.
"The newer varieties are a little nicer to grow, and with announcements like recently here out of Weyburn, there's going to be a new flax straw processing facility opening down there.That's been a concern of a lot of producers, is what do we do with our straw? Residue management can be a real dog with flax, but if you get some opportunities like that coming up, just one more piece of the puzzle." he added.
Grain Millers is a Minnesota-based company and is best known in Saskatchewan for its oat processing plant in Yorkton.
The company has a flax processing plant in Wisconsin, but the one in Delisle is more modern.
"It's older, it's a lot smaller, and not near as advanced as what we have in Delisle and what we're putting in for the milling capacity there. So Delisle gives us a much bigger footprint in the flax industry in North America, and it allows us to expand and to really grow that customer base on the producer side as well as the finished product customer side." Schiels said.
Shiels also said about half of its flax is contracted in advance and half are spot purchases.
He said the bulk of flaxseed and flaxseed products are used for human consumption, which is what they're targeting in Canada, but in the U.S. they do a lot of business in the pet food market as well as the livestock market.
(With files from Neil Billinger, CJWW)
