Seaforth farm operation enhances grains and seeds with omega 3s

Thursday, October 3, 2013

by SUSAN MANN

A Seaforth-area farm is using federal government funding to help it produce grains and seeds fortified with essential fatty acids DHA and EPA.

The farm, Everspring Farms Ltd., received a repayable, interest-free loan of more than $155,000 earlier this week. The money is going to pay for new equipment to produce DHA/EPA omega 3 enhanced flour and sprouted seed products that have been ingrained with the essential fatty acids. The farm worked with Sharp Ingrained Functional Foods to develop the technology to fortify grains and seeds under the brand name, Smartgrain, the federal government’s Oct. 2 press release says.

“The technology is the first process to commercialize ingrained omega 3 DHA/EPA grain products in North America,” the release says. Dale Donaldson, president of Everspring Farms, says their process takes the omega 3 DHA/EPA oil and “actually has it taken into the seed through the process of germination.”

Donaldson says they integrate the nutrient into the seed after harvest “much like a plant would be absorbing it if it was growing, only we do it in a controlled environment.”

Huron-Bruce MP Ben Lobb announced the funding at the farm Oct. 2 on behalf of federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz.

Everspring has already installed the new equipment it needs for making its products and is in production now, Donaldson says. The equipment improvements are helping the company increase production capacity and sales support, create new jobs and meet growing market demands.

“It’s a new product introduced to the marketplace so there’s a lot of scientific information and knowledge that needs to be marketed and communicated,” he notes. Currently, Everspring is producing DHA/EPA enhanced flax and chia seeds.

“We found both those seeds were really good candidates for the process compared to some other seeds, such as wheat and barley where we are not there yet,” he explains. Fortifying wheat and barley seeds isn’t quite as easily done as flax and chia seeds because they react differently to the process.

The enhanced seed products Everspring manufactures are drawing a lot of interest as an “industrial ingredient ” for the bakery industry and it’s being used in some private-label products as a smoothie or cereal mixture or a blending mix to be incorporated with other seeds. “It would be used to fortify a baked item,” such as bagels, buns and breads, Donaldson notes.

The government funding comes from the previous Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Agricultural Innovation $50 million program, part of Canada’s Economic Action Plan. The program ended March 31 and a new innovation-funding program began April 1 under Growing Forward 2, the national agricultural policy framework. It’s called AgriInnovation. BF