Morinville’s pet food plant has gotten a meat-machine upgrade thanks to a provincial grant.Alberta Agriculture announced Monday that Champion Petfoods had received a $288,990 grant to buy new equipment for its Morinville pet food plant. The grant was one of three announced Monday under the federal-provincial Growing Forward 2 program. The grant to Champion covers 20 per cent of the cost of the plant’s new emulsification and votator system, said company business development manager Leigh Newton in an email. The system, installed last January, helps blend and warm their food mix before it’s cooked, and will allow them to put more meat in their products. Since they get all their ingredients locally, this means the plant will now have to buy more local ingredients. “We are very grateful and proud of the ongoing partnership between the Alberta government and Champion Petfoods through the Growing Forward 2 program,” company president Frank Burdzy said in an email. “Our mission at Champion Petfoods is to make biologically appropriate pet foods from fresh regional ingredients and we never outsource. With this focus on using fresh regional ingredients, everything that we are able to partner with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry on has a positive impact on our regional agricultural community.” While Champion is currently constructing a new pet food plant in Parkland County, it has no plans to close its Morinville plant or its associated R&D centre, Newton said. The company was still studying the plant’s future. The other grants announced Monday were $280,000 to Bunge Canada to upgrade its oilseed processing plant in Fort Saskatchewan and $546,000 to ADM Agri-Industries’ Lloydminster operations.
