Alliance buys Finora

Alliance Grain Traders, known by many as Saskcan Pulse, has announced another major acquisition – the second in a week. The latest, announced yesterday, is a deal to purchase the assets of Finora. This comes hot on the heels of Alliance announcing the purchase of Parent Seeds in Manitoba. The Finora deal involves four pulse and specialty crop processing plants in three locations. There are two plants at Wilkie, a plant at Assiniboia and a plant at Gibbons, Alberta about 40 km north of Edmonton. The purchase price is US $8.9 million. Alliance says all the Finora processing plant staff and plant management team will remain. In the Parent Seeds deal, the Parent family will continue to manage the facilities. While farmers will continue to deal with familiar people at the plants, there has been a dramatic consolidation in the companies buying pulse crops. Alliance already has two plants in Regina, two plants at Rosetown, a plant at Aberdeen and a facility at Milestone. The company also has operations in Turkey, Australia and the U.S. On one hand, it’s great to see a Saskatchewan-based company grow to be such a major player. On the other hand, there are concerns whenever marketing options disappear. I’m Kevin Hursh.