SeedMaster’s Emerald Park manufacturing complex is about to grow with a $10 million investment for increased manufacturing capacity.
The company announced on May 22 a plan that would enable the expanded area of their current headquarters will be used to build air seeders and other new products once it is operational this fall. This development will add 20-25 new jobs upon completion.
“We just bought five acres right next to our property in Emerald Park,” SeedMaster CEO Don Henry said. “It’s got a 6,000 square-foot building there with some office space and there’s steel there to build another 6,000 square-feet expansion. We’ll expand our fabrication capability by 12,000 square-feet. We are putting a new laser/plasma cutter in the new building and a new automated paint system for parts.”
Henry added the expansion became necessary due to the demand for Seedmaster’s products.
“We were having to outsource our laser cutting and some of our painting outside of our building for smaller parts,” Henry said. “The automated paint system, based on our calculations, are 40 per cent capacity. So, we have some good upside potential to address future demand and volume.”
The need for expansion was fueled by good commodity prices during the COVID-19 pandemic, which increased demand for air seeders, toolbars, zero till equipment, and other parts.
“There has been a bit of a correction right now with higher interest rates and lower commodity prices, but we have seen the demand grow for our product over the past several years and there are forecasts it will grow into the future. We needed to bring production back in house so we could expand further.”
The business, located on South Plains Drive West, began operations in 2002, after about a decade of research into more effective seeding of crops by engineer and company founder Norbert Beaujot.
“SeedMaster has always been in Emerald Park,” Henry said. “It’s a good place to do business. It’s close to Regina. We’ve got a great base of employees and this just adds on to the 17 acres of land we were using, to where we’ll be using 22 acres in the same block for production.”
Henry added the company will be showing off some of its new innovations at the Ag in Motion event in Langham, SK, from July 16-18.
A message was left for RM of Edenwold Reeve Al Trainor seeking comment on the impacts of a large business expansion in the community. He did not respond.
