Canola protein to feed aquaculture

Protein extracted from Saskatchewan canola could be finding its way to fish farms around the world to replace the disappearing Peruvian anchovy.

Toronto-based Bio-Extraction Inc. (Bio-Exx) is building a $10-million low-volume, low-temperature canola crushing plant in the Corman Industrial Park to provide protein to the global aquaculture industry.

Bio-Exx received more than $11 million in backing this winter from a group of four venture capital funds to complete the facility. Bio-Exx has incorporated a Saskatchewan subsidiary, BioExx Specialty Proteins Inc. to operate and sell the output from the Saskatoon plant.

In high-volume canola crushing, which extracts oil and leaves meal as a byproduct, valuable protein is destroyed or "denatured" by the high-temperature extraction methods used, said company CEO Chris Carl. That won't happen in the BioExx plant.

"About three-quarters of all the protein in canola is a soluble protein and soluble proteins become non-soluble and denatured north of 60 Celsius," he said. "Because we keep our temperatures below 60 all the time, we really don't denature our protein."

The BioExx process, by weight, will turn about 42 per cent of the canola into oil. About 25 per cent of the seed weight becomes the specialty proteins aimed at the fish meal market, Carl said. The balance of the canola is sold as meal for livestock.

The aquaculture industry is desperate to find a replacement for protein now mostly derived by the threatened stocks of Pacific anchovy off Peru. Because of this, the value of the specialty protein aimed at aquaculture is so great that BioExx economics are not affected whether canola as a commodity is $300 a tonne or $600, the CEO said.

When open late this year, the Bio-Exx facility will be the second company producing canola meal protein for aquaculture. Can Pro Ingredients, a Saskatoon company that is using technology developed by University of Saskatchewan researchers, has started canola protein extraction at its facility in Arborfield.

The market is huge and there is room for both companies, says Carl.

"The market for fish meal today is approximately $10 billion and that's just the protein portion of the aquaculture market, which in total is an industry estimated at about $65 billion a year," he said in a phone interview. "There is lots of room for lots of people and frankly we will serve ourselves well if we bring a multitude of products to the table."

The plant being built north of Saskatoon and just south of Warman will not be high-volume, such as the large and expanding Cargill facility at Clavet, which could soon have expanded capacity to crush 1.5 million tonnes each year.

Rather, the expectation is that 40,000 tonnes of canola will be supplied to Bio-Exx each year. Nevertheless, Bio-Exx and grain-handling giant Viterra Inc. announced Wednesday Viterra will supply Bio-Exx for a period of 10 years. Viterra says its closest storage and handling terminal is just eight kilometres from the Bio-Exx facility.

Last month, the plans for the BioExx processing facility were given the green light by federal and provincial environmental agencies, while earlier in the winter BioExx announced it had hired Gord Maclennan to oversee construction of the facility and then stay on as plant manager. Maclennan is a veteran of the canola crushing industry, having recently overseen the modernization and expansion of the Bunge canola facility at Nipawin.

Carl said 16 to 20 employees will be needed to run the plant on a 365-day basis.