The company has facilities in Parkhill, Ailsa Craig and Arkona
By Farms.com
Beechwood Agri Services offers three storage and processing locations to help Ontario’s organic grain growers meet their needs.
The company constructed its facilities to meet the needs of a growing organic market, said Andrew St. Jean, organic manager with Beechwood Agri Services.
“We’ve seen tremendous growth in the last five years, whether it’s farmers switching to organic or growth of the established organic farms,” he said.
The facility in Parkhill, Ont., where the company’s head office is situated, is dedicated to organic storage, said St. Jean.
“The elevator has a little more than a 350,000-bushel capacity,” he explained. “The elevator primarily handles corn, soybeans and wheat, but we also handle oats, barleys and peas.”
Beechwood Agri’s other facility, located near Ailsa Craig, Ont., fully focuses on processing I.P. and organic soybeans.
The plant underwent recent upgrades to help the plant run more efficiently.
“We put in a new warehouse and, with that, put in a new bagging line and robot for stacking the bags to automate different parts of the operation,” St. Jean said.
The company’s third location, near Arkona, Ont., provides services for both the organic and conventional markets.
“We have a steam flaker that’s mostly for the conventional market,” he said. “But we do have some organic dairies feeding organic steam-flaked corn so that’s been a little bit of a niche market.”
Producers attending the Guelph Organic Conference can meet with representatives from Beechwood Agri Services.
The company hopes to engage with farmers about an upcoming event.
“We have a meeting in March every year and hope to announce when the meeting will be,” St. Jean said. “And we’ll also hope to announce new contract pricing.”