LDC expands Yorkton facility

July 26, 2026

Key points from this story:

• LDC opened expanded Yorkton facility July 23
• New pea protein production plant added
• Canola crushing capacity doubled
• Grain Millers marks 25 years processing oats
• TA Foods (Popowich) crushes flaxseed for oil
• Harvest Meats (Propp family) supplies local hot dogs

The complex now houses a new pea protein production plant, while the existing canola processing site was broadened to more than double crushing capacity to more than two million metric tons.

Sitting through the event this reporter could not help but cast his memory back to a day about two decades ago when word arrived at the newspaper office that Louis Dreyfus was going to build a canola plant here. That sort of big addition to the city would be remembered on its own, but making the memory sharper was that Richardson made an announcement they would build a canola crush plant here.

The easy consensus was that one of the companies would 'blink' and opt to go elsewhere, but that was obviously not the case and the rest is happy history for Yorkton, the region and province.

What is more interesting is that the dual canola plants and their subsequent expansions - including LDC's pea protein plant, are foundational in the development of Yorkton in terms of value-added agricultural processing.

The idea of value-added processing being important to agriculture by providing closer to home markets for farmer production has been talked about basically since this scribe picked up a pen near four decades ago.

Marketing options are good for farmers, and they create jobs for communities. It's the epitome of a 'win-win' situation.

Locally, it's not new as a concept. Yorkton will soon see a new 'Interpretive Centre' open attached to the old brick mill in the city. That mill is an early example of value-added with many area families having stories about their grandfathers delivering wheat to the mill to be turned into flour.

The LDC plant follows the lineage. But it's not just canola - nor peas - locally.

Grain Millers is marking its 25th year in Yorkton processing oats here in a plant that has gone through various expansions each meaning more area oats being turned into products - your morning porridge the most recognizable of them.

Local oat milling has a longer history in Yorkton than Grain Millers though. The roots of the plant were established by Popowich Milling.

Today the Popowich family remains focused on value-added processing operating TA Foods which crushes flaxseed for its oil.

In terms of local family efforts in the value-added 'space' the Propp family began Harvest Meats, always recognizable locally at this time of year as the purveyors of hot dogs to so many fundraisers and backyard family barbecues.

For farmers, imagine how different their businesses would be without that local market options the value-added processing in Yorkton provides.

And for Yorkton our economy would be dramatically lessened without the aforementioned plants, as value-added does exactly what it is supposed to - make things better locally.