Manitoba flax plant branches out

A Manitoba flax-processing operation is using the declining smoking rates in North America to kick-start a mini industrial boom in green products made with flax fibre and flax straw.

Schweitzer-Maudit Canada has been running the largest flax-fibre processing plant in the world just outside Carman for the past 35 years.

Traditionally the processed fibre was shipped to the company's pulp mill in New Jersey where it is used to produce flax pulp mostly for the manufacture of cigarette papers.

But Greg Archibald, vice-president in charge of the Manitoba operations, said, "Frankly, the cigarette paper business is in the toilet and that's a good thing. We have been told that we need to plan for some day in the future where we don't sell any of our fibre for our cigarette-paper business."

That transition has been ongoing for some time, with SMC selling processed elements of the flax straw to companies making horse bedding and erosion-control materials.

But there is plenty more in the works.

On Friday the company announced about $1 million in new capital investment in equipment to produce higher-quality fibre as well as the development of a new production facility in Winkler that will help turn flax straw that used to be waste into value-added products.

Provincial and federal government departments provided about half the funding for the project.

The company is selling some elements of the flax stem that used to be waste to a couple of local commercial entities -- Vanderveen's Greenhouses and the local Rosebank Hutterite Colony -- who use the waste, called flax shives, instead of dirty coal to heat their operations.

"We love these kinds of development because it points us in the right direction in terms of meeting our Kyoto protocol commitments," said Stan Struthers, the province's Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives.

Archibald is also very excited about another Carman business about to begin production, making fireplace logs out of the same flax shives.

On Friday Kevin Lumb was hard at work in the final throes of completing the manufacturing plant for Flax Power Ltd., the company that he founded with Grant Shabaga.

Flax Power has contracted with SMC for a guaranteed supply of flax shives that it will use in a special production technique. Lumb said testing of their logs has shown they will burn with less smoke, less creosote and generate more heat than an oak log.

Made from 100 per cent natural flax straw, Flax Power's 10 Hour Power Log contains no wax or resins like other commercially available fireplace logs and will burn 10 times longer than others and cost about the same.

"Were getting interest from all over the world," Lumb said, naming off several Canadian provinces, U.S. states and European countries.

With "millions" of dollars invested in the enterprise and a couple of years' preparation, Lumb is anxious to get production started. The company will probably employ about six people at the beginning and more depending on production rates.

In addition to those new jobs, SMC will need to hire another five or six people for its new Winkler facility, and Archibald said they are in negotiation to supply flax fibre to another company in Winnipeg.

Archibald would not say what the Winnipeg company will be doing, but it might have something to do with the R&D that SMC has been engaged in for some time with the Composites Innovation Centre to use flax fibre in composite materials, taking the place of fibreglass.

Motor Coach Industries has already made a bus door using flax fibre composites and Archibald said there is exciting potential for the development of that kind of technology.

On top of all that there is ongoing interest in the nutraceutical benefits of the Omega 3 components of flax seed, and additional studies are now taking place using other elements of the flax plant.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 22, 2010 B4