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BrettYoung opens new state-of-the-art seed processing facility in Winnipeg

BrettYoung has opened a new 60,000-square-foot facility designed for cleaning, sorting and packaging turf seed.

The $20-million facility – named NorthCore – is located in Winnipeg and was constructed to achieve a new level in capacity.

“We’ve had progressive growth every year for 15 years running,” Cory Baseraba, BrettYoung COO, said. “Our customers continue to want more products from us, and we’ve been limited by what we can provide, mainly by how much we can grow and process. With several initiatives underway to increase turf seed production in Western Canada, we still needed to increase our processing capabilities to service our customers. And to do that with the same high level of service we want to provide is what drove the decision to invest in NorthCore.”

NorthCore currently features one cleaning line with space for three more lines as supply grows. It has a pneumatic conveying system (a network of pipelines that move seed with air) to transfer seed around the facility, blending and packaging lines that process seed three times more quickly than the legacy equipment, and is all run digitally through centralized monitoring and control systems.

“NorthCore was designed to focus on turf seed,” Baseraba said. “With a focus on those products, it reduces the number of changeouts, downtime, and cleaning time. This also allows our employees to focus on specific aspects of the job and make it their specialty, making the entire system more efficient.”