It took them a long while, but Alpine Plant Foods finally has a permanent presence in Western Canada.
The American company that manufactures liquid starter fertilizer held the grand opening for their new manufacturing plant east of Kalium Road near Belle Plaine on Wednesday with tours, a luncheon, door prizes and speeches at the facility.
The company’s product is placed directly with the seed when planted as opposed to granular fertilizer, which is planted alongside the seed and does not immediately mix with the seeds. Alpine also manufactures and distributes foliar fertilizers and a variety of micronutrients.
The company was founded in 1973, but it was not until 1999 that it became involved in western Canada. It took an Ontario farmer, Murray Wilson, to move to Saskatchewan and request the product for it to make its way to the Prairies.
“The more time I spend out here the more I wonder why we didn’t start out here,” said Terry Good, Western Canada sales manager with Alpine. The product provides phosphate not always readily available in the cold, dry conditions found in the province, he said.
Good, who began with the company in 1980, had never been to western Canada before 1999, describing himself as a prototypical Easterner oblivious to western methods.
“I didn’t know you guys used fertilizer out here for all I knew,” he joked.
For more on this story, see Thursday's Times-Herald
