Champion Petfoods announced Tuesday it’s building a 37,000-square-metre facility just outside Edmonton’s western border to make dog and cat food.
The new kitchen will prepare kibble and freeze-dried foods and treats for the Edmonton-based company’s Acana and Orijent dog and cat food brands, and there will also be a distribution warehouse and logistics centre, according to a news release from the Edmonton-based company.
The operation is expected to create about 200 jobs when it opens in 2019. Construction at the 30-hectare site in Parkland County’s Acheson Industrial Park is scheduled to begin next month.
The privately owned company, started more than 30 years ago, focusses on preparing what it calls “biologically appropriate” pet food using fresh regional ingredients. Its products are sold in more than 80 countries.
Considered Canada’s largest independent pet-food maker, Champion has facilities in Morinville, including a $5.9-million laboratory, and Oakville, Ont., which supply Canadian, European and Asian customers.
It opened a production plant in Auburn, Ky., in 2016 to serve the American market.
The company spent $1 million in 2010-11 to control cooking odours from its Morinville kitchen that one resident compared to “putting your face within a foot of a dog’s bowl.”
Complaints about the smell were an issue during the 2010 civic election