FarmPure entices public with its new products

Angela Hall, The Leader-Post
Published: Monday, January 22, 2007

In a kitchen that would be fitting for any Regina show home, various bags of oats sit on the shiny black countertop.

A tray of oat snacks, created by a professional chef, have cooled on the stovetop. On the ceiling, a camera is poised to broadcast cooking demonstrations onto two flat-screen televisions.

The state-of-the-art kitchen, and the professionally decorated reception room that adjoins it, belong to the Regina-based, farmer-owned company FarmPure Inc.

Chief executive Trenton Baisley scoops out samples of an oat mixture for visitors to the kitchen to try, promising the unique recipe has a little zip - just one of many products put together by FarmPure's director of food creation for potential distributors to sample.

And Baisley hopes the company is cooking up another success as it continues to branch out from its core seed business. FarmPure is launching consumer-ready products under the "Only Oat" brand name, with products such as steel cut oats and flavoured oatmeal breakfast blends.

The company has quietly gone about commissioning an oat plant in Regina, with a more formal announcement about the venture expected in the coming weeks.

FarmPure has also developed NuBru, using "all natural" ingredients and developed with a patented beverage-making process. The company can make a gluten-free or a malt-based beverage, depending on how it's blended. Baisley says the first product FarmPure is launching is a NuBru malt-based blend.

"Our shareholders have a common dream of sustainable agriculture for Canada," Baisley says, explaining how the company evolved into FarmPure.

In 2005, the pedigreed seed commercialization company known as Quality Assured Seeds became FarmPure Inc., the owner of subsidiary businesses such as FarmPure Seeds and FarmPure Foods.

"We ended up recognizing that there wasn't a future just in pedigreed seed as a seed-commercialization channel and we really should go into the value chain side," says Baisley, back at the company's corporate offices, in the same strip mall as the FarmPure kitchen.

Pedigreed seed is still FarmPure's core product, Baisely says. A variety of flags are on display in the boardroom, a nod to the public and private breeding institutions FarmPure Seeds represents in 10 countries.

However, "value creation" has become FarmPure's business, he says.

"We came to realize that if we really wanted to grow the company and to create more wealth in agriculture, we really needed to get in the value chain. We had to become part of the value chain," Baisley says.

That's a lot different than being in a supply chain, which consists of "little disparate business transactions," says Baisley.

"To us, a value chain is when you have the consumer wants, needs, desires, connected right down to the bottom, and we're saying right to seed."

Baisley himself got an acknowledgment from the seed industry this month. The Canadian magazine Germination choose him as one of four "forward-thinking movers and shakers in the seed industry."

Baisley joined then-named Quality Assured Seeds as CEO in 2002 and by the fall of 2005 had "led the company to a new name, structure and purpose -- to focus on creating an integrated value chain with its partners rather than being one link in the supply chain," the publication noted.

FarmPure expanded its presence in 2006 with the purchase of SW Seed Canada, a subsidiary of a Swedish company. The move gave FarmPure Seeds control of a grass-seed cleaning-and-processing plant in Nipawin, a canola cleaning-and-treating facility in Laurier, Man., and a retail operation in Brandon, Man.

The consumer products the FarmPure has developed under the "Only Oats" brand are targeted in part at people with celiac disease, who can't tolerate gluten in their diet.

Only Oats are "uncontaminated" or pure oats, meaning testing ensures there's no cross-contamination from other grains that could introduce gluten into the oats, Baisley says.

In addition to the "purity" aspect, Baisely says the oats also have a convenience and taste factor.

"Our processing is unique in the sense that we end up with a product that we can create different taste sensations, so we can create different nuttiness and toastiness to the flavour of our oats, to the base product," he says.

"Because of how we roast, our cooking times are reduced with the oats, so our oats cook in a much faster time than conventional oats."

The company is also committed to agriculture-health connection, he says. To that end, FarmPure announced Tuesday a partnership with Symmetrics Pro Cycling. As part of the sponsorship, the British Columbia-based team will feature the FarmPure logo on the 2007 Symmetrics jersey.

While the oat plant in Regina is FarmPure's first new "bricks-and-mortar" commitment, there are other projects and products currently under development, Baisley says.

Canada continues to ship out boatloads of commodities, but some of those grains can be made into products at home to create more value, he says.

"I just think there's a lot of lessons out there for all of us in agriculture and agri-food in Canada to look at and say 'We can be a nation of much more value-added products in the world than we are today,' " Baisley says.

"That's what our little company has started to do. ... We think in our own small way we can create some wonderful products for consumers and at the same time create value for our shareholders and our stakeholders."