October 4, 2019

Cavendish Farms opens new $430 million potato processing facility in Alberta

Cavendish Farms’ new $430 million frozen potato processing plant in Canada is open for business. A ribbon-cutting ceremony took place at the Lethbridge, Alberta plant on Oct. 2.

The ceremony included Cavendish Farms President Robert Irving, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and Lethbridge Mayor Chris Spearman.

“Our new state-of-the-art plant is up and running and will allow us to continue to serve key export markets around the world,” Irving said. “There were many reasons we were able to expand our operation in Lethbridge and grow in Alberta. It starts with the availability of high quality potatoes from local growers, the can-do attitude of our Lethbridge employees and the dedicated effort of the project team and the hundreds of vendors who contributed to this project.”

“I would like to thank Cavendish Farms for making this important $430 million investment in Alberta,” Premier Kenney said. “Alberta’s food processing industry is growing in size and sophistication, and will be a key part of our government’s strategy to expand Alberta’s economy and create more jobs.”

The new state-of-the-art plant replaces Cavendish Farms’ previous plant and will almost triple its production capacity in Lethbridge. The $430 million dollar plant spans the size of seven football fields and will require 735 million pounds of potatoes annually. That’s an increase of almost 12,000 acres over what Cavendish Farms currently contracts from local growers. The new plant will require an additional 238 employees.

The project involved two million person hours of work for contractors during construction. Over 900 workers were on site at peak. Upward of 110 Alberta companies were part of the project.





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