CIt was only a couple days ago the Yorkton Chamber of Commerce was given a brief presentation on the ‘Transportation and Growth Opportunities for the Yorkton Region’ by John Law.
Law told those at the recent Chamber luncheon not surprisingly Yorkton not only serves as a regional centre, but to an ever expanding one.
“That role today is more important than it has ever been,” said Law.
Yorkton might only be 20,000 people, but the catchment area in terms of business is estimated at 230,000.
But the importance of transportation goes beyond the immediate region too.
Law said transportation is critical for development as it is required to move anything made locally to markets outside Saskatchewan and other places around the country, and the world.
The fact business people in Yorkton do take products to international customers is something we sometimes seem to forget, but the fact is there are markets around the globe open to entrepreneurs here.
Take the case of Blaine Buckle (see Page A1), who visited China, saw an opportunity to export Canadian beef into a potentially massive market, and took it.
Now another case of BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy ) recently discovered in Alberta has closed Chinese boarders to Canadian beef, but the market is there when borders are open.
Granted the initial shipment of beef Buckle sent was from Ontario, the Yorkton-area cattleman said his vision would be a production plant in Saskatchewan to serve the Chinese market.
There is no reason such a plant if built, could not be here.
Buckle’s efforts to capture international sales is far from unique locally, even in terms of China.
Wendell Estate Honey a family-ran honey production business at MacNutt had undertaken to export product, soft-creamed-honey presented in jars, with sales in Canada, as well as Japan and China.
“We analyzed the market for the high-end honey, honey that was nicely presented,” said employee Martin Neuhofer in a 2013 Yorkton This Week article.
The Wendell Estate product is not trying to compete with the mass-produced, heated and packaged honeys available on supermarket shelves.
Instead, Neuhofer said they are looking to generate sales through gift shops, high-end wine stores and similar locations, where it can sell at a significant premium as a hostess gift, or as a corporate gift.
As an example a twelve ounce jar of the Wendell Estate Honey retails for some $18 in Montreal and $40 in China, said Neuhofer.
TA Foods Ltd. in Yorkton has also quietly been forging markets for its flax products in markets around the world.
“We sell oil all over the world,” said company head Terry Popowich in a 2013 YTW story, noting sales include bulk sales to Honduras where it is processed by Mazola Oil, with other sales to Columbia, Korea, Indonesia and China among others.
The Chinese market is a new one for TA Foods, and one Popowich believes will grow in importance moving forward.
Interest in the market had TA Foods participate in a Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership-organized trade mission to a trade show in Shanghai last October.
“It’s going to be a good market for us,” predicted Popowich.
The trip with STEP was promising enough that this spring TA Foods was back in China this spring, this time going it alone.
“We put our booth in a Beijing at an edible oil trade show … We were the only Canadian company in the trade show, which was to our benefit,” he said, adding “… we came back from Beijing with contracts.”
Canola oil from the two canola crushing plants here, and rolled oats from Grain Millers also find markets beyond Canadian borders.
Of course export sales from companies such as Morris Industries, Leon Manufacturing and Ram Industries are rather common place. There has long been a market for Canadian manufactured farm equipment in the United States, Australia, Eastern Europe and South America, places where dry land farming techniques are at least somewhat similar to here.
Even Maple Farm Equipment has had international sales.
In a 2011, YTW story it was reported the John Deere dealership shipped swathers to South Africa, rock pickers to Australia, used combines to Britain, grain drills to Germany, and interest had come from Mongolia.
It all goes to show that building on an agricultural base here, business has taken product to the world, and will continue to do so, making transportation services by both rail and road imperative to our City’s future.
