Officials from Roquette and the Manitoba government announced plans for the company’s new pea processing plant on Jan. 18 at the provincial Legislative Building. (Shannon VanRaes photo)

Roquette counts on expanding Canadian pea output

Reading Time: 2 minutes Winnipeg | Reuters — France’s Roquette, which is building the world’s largest pea protein plant in Manitoba, is counting on the province’s farmers to boost their production to supply the $400 million factory, the company said Friday. Roquette raised eyebrows this week when it said it would build the plant in Portage la Prairie, Man., […] Read more

(Roquette.com)

France’s Roquette bets on pea protein with Manitoba plant

Reading Time: 2 minutes Paris | Reuters — French plant-based ingredient maker Roquette will build the world’s largest pea protein facility in Manitoba to meet fast-growing demand for vegetable protein in food and pharmaceutical products in North America, the group said Wednesday. The global pea protein market has seen a sharp rise in recent years, mainly driven by increasing […] Read more


For Manitoba vegetable grower Rolland Jeffries, Kelly Beaulieu’s company can create a market for vegetables that used to get rejected because of size or blemishes.

Picking up business

New food-processing technologies are creating a new era of opportunities, including for crops that just get plowed under today

Reading Time: 7 minutes Behind the scenes in Canada’s food-processing industry, countless entrepreneurs are conjuring up new business opportunities by making more efficient use of our crops, including through improved processing and the use of previously wasted portions stock. Watching over and assisting many of these developers is Roberta Irving, who is in charge of business development at the […] Read more

CPG, whose COO and owner Kelly Beaulieu is shown here in a file photo, will get over half a million dollars in public funds for the company’s expansion.

Puree processor gets GF2 funds for expansion

Reading Time: 2 minutes A Portage la Prairie food processor that converts culled vegetables into nutritional purees has received $582,000 from the federal-provincial Growing Value program to increase its capacity. Canadian Prairie Garden Puree Products has acquired new equipment and modified its existing operation in order to cook more types of fruits, vegetables and pulse crops like chickpeas, navy […] Read more


Ian Wishart standing in front of Manitoba Legislature

When farm leaders meet provincial politics

Does it always pay to put your “X” beside the farmer’s name on the ballot?

Reading Time: 8 minutes It isn’t a unique story. In the late fall of 2010, Manitoba farmer Ian Wishart called a press conference to announce that he was heading into provincial politics, and that he had decided to seek the Progressive Conservative nomination for his Portage la Prairie constituency. Until then, Wishart had been the well-regarded president of the […] Read more