Meatless Farm opens plant protein production plant in Calgary

Meatless Farm is giving Alberta some love.

The U.K. company that makes vegan meat alternatives has launched a plant protein ingredients subsidiary called Lovingly Made Ingredients that will operate out of a flagship facility in Calgary.

The 30,000-square-foot plant is the first of its kind on this scale in Canada, and will have the capacity to produce up to 14,500 tonnes of plant protein ingredients by 2023, according to a press release.

The scale of the facility will also allow Meatless Farm to produce customized plant proteins for external partners across meat-alternatives, bakery, snacks, cereals and more.

Meatless Farm says it's one of the fastest growing brands in the plant-based market, operating in 24 countries with multiple product lines stocked in six major supermarkets in the U.K.

But, Canada is "the pea capital of the world," said Meatless Farm founder Morten Toft Bech, and opening a plant in Calgary affords the company "the ability to grow, harvest, process and extract its pea protein all within one country."

"Bringing this under our own operations in Canada will have huge benefits for efficiency, quality, sustainability and innovation and enable us to offer that innovation and manufacturing expertise to other partners too," he said.