REGINA, SASKATCHEWAN, CANADA — Alliance Grain Traders announced on Dec. 3 that it is expanding its Minot, North Dakota, U.S., pulses ingredient production facility, which is focused on the production of pulses ingredient flours, proteins, starches and fibers with the installation of a second production line that is expected to double that facility’s production capacity.

“Operations at our Minot facility are progressing positively. We expect this expansion in production to assist in ramping-up our marketing and commercialization program for our pulse food ingredient business. The facility began testing and production in late June 2013 and the positive momentum of sales and production has continued to build both through our agreement with Cargill as an outlet to move our proteins into the North American petfood industry and through our global sales activities focused on food and feed companies,” said Murad Al-Katib, president and chief executive officer of AGT. “As food and feed companies look for non-GMO, low allergen, high protein and high fiber ingredients or innovative flour and starch ingredients, we feel more and more that pulse based ingredients may fill some of these requirements. Our R&D Centre in Saskatoon has made good progress on technical application development and collaborative research for the food and feed uses of our ingredient platform. Commercial sales opportunities are growing, and with it our scale in this new initiative is building necessitating this expansion.”

The new production line is scheduled to be operational in the first quarter of 2014 at an estimated cost of $4 million and is expected to add 35,000 tonnes of production capacity to AGT’s Minot ingredient facility, operating under the AGT Foods banner, bringing the capacity of that facility to 70,000 tonnes per annum.

AGT’s Minot facility can also accommodate a further 35,000-tonne expansion through a third production line that may be added in the future.