Yeast plant not up and running yet

By Charlotte MacAulay


An engineering firm is still working on the design of an addition to the future yeast manufacturing plant in Summerville PEI said company President.
Garth Greenham of Phyterra Yeast Inc. said, a 557 square metre addition will be added on to the former MacGowan Tractor building to house a fermentation suite.
The company will receive more than $3 million in government funding to convert the building.
The production of commercial scale yeast will take place at the plant.
“We are hoping to start construction in the next four to six weeks and that should bring us to opening in the first quarter of 2011,” Mr Greenham said.
Currently the company has 18 employees on PEI, mostly in the research and development area and they are based at research facilities at UPEI.
Some of those employees will be moving from UPEI to the new facility when it begins operation, but the university will still be used by the company , Mr Greenham said.
“It is very convenient to be able to lease lab space that is already set up,” he said.
The facility will bring 20 new jobs to the Island when the plant is up and running.
There have already been employment inquiries from students in the Holland College Bioscience Technology program Mr Greenham said.
In addition to the jobs at the plant, local companies will be given opportunity to bid on the manufacturing of equipment for the plant.
The addition will house fermentation tanks, some as big as 20,000 litres.
Mr Greenham said his looking forward to working with more local companies in the construction of the yeast plant.
Diversified Metal Engineering in Charlottetown made a lot of the equipment for Maritime Pulse Drying, a plant in Graham’s Pond that is also run by Phyterra Yeast Inc.
Operations manager Doug Clark said the drying facility is in the process of doing samples for potential clients and are awaiting their certification from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Once that happens the plant should be running full tilt with the potential to have four shifts and 10-12 people working in total, said Mr Clark.
The Graham’s Pond plant will also be used to dry the yeast from Phyterra’s Summerville operation, said Mr Clark.