By Shannon Dueck, Steinbachonline.com
Steinbach, MB
HyLife held a grand opening Thursday for its Randolph Feed Mill, located just north of Highway 52 and east of Highway 59.
Chief Financial Officer Howard Siemens says talks began in January, 2014 and they put shovel in the ground in April of the following year. It took 16 months to construct the facility, using at times up to ninety workers per day on site.
“‘We are for the most part done,” says Siemens.
In fact, Siemens says they began running equipment about six days ago. A graduated startup will be done over the next four weeks, producing about 1,650 tonnes of feed per week. Then for the month of October, they will increase that to about 3,300 tonnes of feed per week before reaching full capacity of 5,000 tonnes per week in November. At that rate, they will produce about 250,000 tonnes of feed per year.
Siemens says over the last few years HyLife has built a lot of farms. In deciding where to build the mill, he notes they came up with a location that made the most sense as far as trucking efficiencies. Hanover Reeve Stan Toews says he is thrilled they built where they did.
“We’re very glad that they saw that Hanover was a very good fit for their operation,” says Toews.
The Reeve had a chance to walk through the mill Thursday, using words like “massive” and “impressive” to describe it. Toews notes Hanover had to upgrade the road north of Highway 52 in order to accommodate the mill, but he says it is a small price to pay for what is coming in return.
The mill will employ 42 people, with about 30 of those being truck drivers. Siemens says 35 trucks daily are expected to leave the property filled with food. He says HyLife will need 90,000 acres of farmland just to bring the cereal grain ingredients to this mill.
There are 38 bulk bins on site, with total storage of ingredients of just over 7,000 tonnes.
