TORONTO — Global Food and Ingredients Inc. (GFI) announced Oct. 1 it has established its latest Plant-Based Pet Food Ingredients business after acquiring a state-of-the-art pet food ingredient manufacturing plant in Bowden, Alberta, Canada.

The Bowden facility manufactures several plant-based ingredients specifically for use in the pet food market, including milled red lentils, green lentils, chickpeas, pinto beans, yellow peas and green peas. The establishment of this plant-based ingredients division is expected to help GFI tap into the growing market for plant-powered dog and cat foods.

"This acquisition provides a significant growth opportunity for GFI to enter the fast-growing pet food market, furthering the plant-based movement,” said David Hanna, chief executive officer at GFI. “We can now offer healthy and sustainable, high protein formulated plant-based ingredients for pets that are cost effective and replace animal-based ingredients.”

The facility not only expands GFI’s ingredient capabilities, but also supports sustainability for itself and its pet food customers. These sustainability benefits include reduced overall production costs and waste reduction. GFI will extract ingredients from the byproduct streams at its other facilities and turn them into valuable pet food ingredients.

“The new capabilities acquired through this acquisition enhance the company's operations and represents a key step forward in realizing GFI's zero waste strategy, maximizing the value of every step throughout our production systems while boosting profitability,” Hanna added.

These new ingredient capabilities will also help GFI serve the grain-free pet food space, as lentils, peas, chickpeas and beans are also key inclusions in these formulas.

GFI operates three other business segments: Pea Protein Inputs, Plant-Based Ingredients, and Consumer Packaged Goods. The company now operates four wholly owned plants across Saskatchewan and Alberta.

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