Alliance Grain Traders Inc. Announces Regina Pasta and Pulse Facility
REGINA, SK, OCT 7, 2011 - Alliance Grain Traders Inc. (“AGT”) is pleased to announce its intention to invest up to CDN $50 million towards the construction of a pasta and pulse processing and logistics complex to be located in the Global Transportation Hub (“GTH”) in Regina, Saskatchewan. The project is expected to commence construction in 2012 and was announced earlier today at an event held in Regina, Saskatchewan attended by the Right Honourable Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the Honourable Gerry Ritz, Minister of Agriculture, the Honourable Brad Wall, Premier of Saskatchewan and His Worship, Mayor Pat Fiacco of the City of Regina.
The complex is planned as a milling site for wheat and pulses – processing durum wheat into semolina for the production of the Arbella pasta brand in Canada, as well as pulse processing capacity for production of ingredient pulse flours, proteins, starches and fibres. The distribution centre is expected to capitalize on the availability of ocean containers, trucks and intermodal units at the GTH site for domestic and export shipments.
“We are continuing our growth and expansion strategy of our global packaged food and ingredients platforms in pulses and milled durum wheat. We have always been focused on creating value through origin-based processing, locating our processing facilities where high quality crops are grown. We seek to create value for our farmer suppliers and our shareholders by shipping finished food products and not just the raw basic commodities to markets around the world. Canada is a dominant world supplier of durum wheat and pulses. With our strong Canadian base built over the past decade, Western Canada was a logical choice for our new processing complex. The GTH will provide a competitive freight advantage for us that makes this a sensible investment,” said Mr. Murad Al-Katib, President and CEO of Alliance Grain Traders Inc.
“We have spoken many times about our intentions to expand into these areas. We have a strong balance sheet and will continue to deploy capital to enhance the opportunities as we identify them,” continued Mr. Al-Katib.
“We have built a successful global pasta business based out of our production facilities in Turkey. With the good conditions in Canada, we feel that significant opportunities exist to expand our operations here. Our relationships with growers in Western Canada and our relationships with our international customers we sell to everyday create opportunities and synergies that we feel may be realized through this investment. This expansion is an important step in ensuring a strong foundation for our future by solidifying our pasta milling capacity in Canada and moving us further up the value chain in our pulses platform. This, we feel, will assist in enabling us to continue to successfully and profitably supply the world with pulse ingredients and our other products,” added Mr. Huseyin Arslan, Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors for AGT.