The dairy industry says they're going green with a new facility to help them cut trucking emissions and costs.
The Dairy Innovation West facility will be built near Red Deer, which Alberta Milk says will remove water from raw milk to create concentrated components, ultimately, cutting trucking emissions in half by reducing volume.
The facility will be owned by Western Milk Pool members, with construction set to start in April 2020.
Alberta Milk Chairman,Tom Kootstra, says Alberta out produces its processing capacity and trucks milk from Central Alberta to processing facilities as far as Winnipeg and Abbotsford.
Kootstra says the facility is the first of its kind in Canada, with several processes to condense the milk.
"One is reverse osmosis and the other is ultrafiltration," he explains. "Depending on the process, we reduce the volume by 2:1, or as much as 4:1 depending on the requirements of the processor that's receiving this concentrated product."
He says the initiative is another example of how the dairy industry continues to meet societal expectations of being responsible stewards of the environment.
Koostra points to good highway access, high concentration of dairy production and central proximity when addressing the reasons why the Red Deer area was chosen as the best location for the future facility.
However, he notes the firm managing the project has it narrowed down to three potential sites, with the final location still to be determined.
Alberta Milk says the site will be 20 acres, in anticipation of future expansion and attracting additional processors to the site.
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