Richardson Spending $120 Million to Upgrade Lethbridge Canola Plant

Richardson International has announced its investing $120 million to upgrade and expand its canola processing plant at Lethbridge, Alberta.

Currently, the company says the facility can process approximately 450,000 metric tonnes per year. The plan is to boost capacity to over 2,000 tonnes per day, and more than 700,000 tonnes per year.

Some of the work started last year, with the acquisition of new processing equipment. Construction is also underway on a seed receiving facility that will be able to receive 800 tonnes of canola per hour, a significant increase over the current system, according to the company.

“We are continuing ongoing capital upgrades in Lethbridge to increase crush capacity and realize greater efficiencies,” said Darwin Sobkow, Executive Vice-President, Agribusiness & Processing Operations. “This will allow us to better serve our customers and create a state-of-the-art facility that is very efficient for its size, positioning us to compete with the most modern canola crushing facilities in North America.”

The new receiving system is expected to be ready for the 2017 harvest.

“Increasing the speed of the receiving plant is a top priority for us to better serve our customers, providing them with the ability to deliver their seed quickly and efficiently,” said Sobkow.

Together with its plant in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, Richardson says it will have the ability to process over 1.7 million tonnes of canola per year.

Richardson acquired the former Canbra Foods facility in 1999.

Related: Chinese Dockage Rules Could Halt Record Run for Canadian Canola Demand

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Categories: Ag Business / News / Western Canada