Dundalk Area Farmers Glad to Have New Crop Centre Facility This Spring

DUNDALK, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Aug. 12, 2014) - Huron Bay Co-operative received spectacular support from local farmers at the co-op's grand opening of its new crop centre in Dundalk last week.

The co-op's staff fed approximately 350 people a barbecue lunch of hamburgers and sausage-on-a-bun throughout the afternoon on Aug. 7. The ribbon cutting ceremony took place at 1:00 pm with participation from local MPP for Bruce/Grey/Owen Sound Bill Walker, mayor for the Township of Southgate Brian Milne and the president of Huron Bay Co-operative Byron Monk who all took time to say a few words of congratulations to Huron Bay Co-operative.

The new crop centre facility holds 2,000 metric tons of fertilizer compared to the old building that had a storage capacity of 350T. It now houses five, 200T bins and four, 250T bins compared to the previous building of five, 70T bins.

"The biggest impact for our members is the ability to have product on hand when needed," says Dave Rogers, branch manager for the Dundalk site. "Not only do we now have six times more storage space, but we can now off-load product in half the time." The facilities new ten-tonne vertical blender system replaces a four-tonne tub-blender.

During his comments at the grand opening ceremony, Byron Monk commended the employees of Huron Bay Co-op on their teamwork in getting this facility up and running for spring 2014. "It was imperative to our farmer-members to have a more efficient system to accommodate the growing needs of local farmers in this part of the province," says Monk.

"It is no wonder we had such great community support today," said Rogers. "There is a steep history here of co-op supporters." The co-operative has been a part of this region for 62 years and has a strong loyal customer base with several of its members coming from multi-generational farms that have supported the co-op for many years," says Rogers.

Huron Bay Co-op is owned by about 2,000 members and employs 60 fulltime staff members, and about 50 part-time and seasonal workers. It serves Bruce County, West Grey and North Huron Counties through 10 branch locations providing crop inputs, crop protection products, custom application services, bulk fuel, feed, and local community retail stores. The co-operative is a member-owner of GROWMARK, Inc., a regional wholesale supply co-operative and it markets products and services under the FS brand.

Photos available upon request!