New High-Tech Dairy Facility Coming To Central Alberta

Nov 29, 2019

The dairy industry says it's going green with a new facility to be built near Red Deer.

Alberta Milk says the new Dairy Innovation West facility will remove water from raw milk to create concentrated components need by processors for a number of products.

They this will reduce truck emissions by 50 per cent by reducing volume.

“Instead of two trucks on the road, there would only be one,” Alberta Milk Chairman, Tom Kootstra said in a statement. “Dairy farmers are always seeking more opportunities to work smarter and continue to be stewards of the land.”

Alberta Milk says the facility will have the capacity to accommodate up to 300 million litres of milk per year and is is the first of its kind in Canada.

The facility will be owned by the Western Milk Pool members, which are producers from the four Western Canadian provincial dairy groups, and will be operated by Vitalus Nutrition Inc.

Alberta Milk says the site is currently 20 acres in size, anticipating attracting more processors and future expansion.

Shovels will hit the ground this coming April, with construction set to be complete in March 2021.

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Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.