Flax straw used to be viewed as an unwanted waste product by producers with seemingly only two possible outcomes—burn it or let it sit in the field. One company is seeing not only dollar signs in every stalk, but possibilities.
The once wasted flax straw has become the latest environmental darling due to its flexible and valuable applications. Biomass fuel, building materials, animal bedding, fibre, mulch, feed, and bioplastics are a few of the many end-product uses of flax straw, but there’s one catch: somebody needs to process the raw material.
That’s where Saskatchewan-born Prairie Clean Energy steps in, forming a five-year overnight success story. Launched in the midst of the Covid fervor, PCE founder Trevor Thomas devised a way to make good use of the flax straw he watched being burned all around him. Now five years hence, the company headquartered in Regina is renovating a building in Weyburn to become the first processing facility of its kind in the world.
“We chose it because it was an existing building and we could quickly get rolling there,” said PCE President and CEO Mark Cooper. “Renovations are underway, which is good, and should conclude by the end of July, I would think at the latest. Then equipment will be installed in July and August, we’ll be in some form of production in August, and fully in production mode, I think, by the end of September.”
PCE gained approval from Weyburn City Council back in February for a discretionary use development permit at 54 Queen Street, which was formerly the NorAmera Bioenergy ethanol plant. Zoned Medium Industrial, the discretionary use does allow for grain storage, milling, cleaning, and/or drying.
“It really is going to work out well for us,” Cooper said, adding that everything seemed to happen at the right time for the Weyburn facility. “We’re probably about a month behind the original schedule, but a month is not too bad.”
So why Weyburn?
“There’s two main reasons,” he said. “First of all, it had a building ready to go that could meet our needs, and we could lease it at a fair price. The second factor is it’s a good location from a flax straw availability perspective. Some of the world’s best flax is growing right around there, and we’ve got good relationships with the farmers in the region, so it’s conveniently located close to the supply which is an important factor.”
One thing the PCE crew wasn’t expecting was how willing the city was to work with them, which was a pleasant surprise.
“It has made a big difference since,” Cooper said. “It is a wonderful and welcoming community. Everybody from the mayor on down has been active in welcoming us, meeting with us, and seeing what they can do to help support what we’re trying to do. All of these things have been just a sign that we’ve made the right choice and that it’s the kind of place that really fits with who we are as a company.”
Another interesting fact is that a rail line leads right into the building as well.
“That’s an additional piece,” Cooper said. “We would need to do some work to get it up and running. We don’t have any plans to do that in the short term, but it does allow for longer term expansion and shipping, which is great.”
Producers optimistic
PCE has been actively buying flax straw for the past three years, and Cooper says he’s heard a mix of enthusiasm and healthy skepticism from producers.
“Enthusiasm from the perspective of the fact that anybody who grows flax knows that the straw is a real nuisance and a problem,” he said. “They’ve been looking for solutions forever, and they are really welcoming to a solution that will see them make some money from dealing with something that otherwise costs them money and time.”
As from the other half of the initial reaction, some folks are still a bit cautious of what happens next.
“Skepticism from the perspective of the fact that lots of people have tried different things at different times,” Cooper explained. “So they are cautious about committing to anything until they know that it’s real. Now, despite that, we’ve had over 60,000 acres of flax secured under long-term right of first refusal agreements with farmers and we’ve got a great database of something like 400 or 500 producers who have flax in their rotations. We’re the only registered buyer of flax straw in Saskatchewan or in Manitoba. So we’ve built the relationships that we need to do that, and they’ve been supportive, but they also have a healthy degree of, ‘okay, show us. Don’t just talk to us about it, show us.’ For three years, we bought flax straw, we’ve put it to use, and this year we’re gonna buy more. Now, they’ll have a facility that they could come and visit, so we think that this is a launching pad for the next phase of growth of our business and the next phase of relationship-building with our farmers.
“It’s on up from here,” he continued. “This will be one facility of what eventually will be many, and we’ll be able to take this model and roll it out across the prairies.”
A common summer sight across the province is a field of bright, yellow canola right next to pale blue flax petals—something that Cooper is confident will be more common as the processing facility kicks into high gear.
“It’s a good idea to have flax in the rotation, and I believe—and I think most people in the flax world believe—that with a steady, reliable source for the straw, we will see more flax growing, not less,” Cooper said. “We don’t need that to happen in order for our business to be successful, but we believe it will happen and we’re going to be focused on helping to see more flax being grown.”
Grateful for start-up boosts
Over the past five years, PCE has been the fortunate recipient of certain funding dollars that helped launch the home-grown business. Among them was a $1.1 million Mining Innovation Commercialization Accelerator in 2023. Of the 24 projects that received MICA funding, PCE was the only recipient from Saskatchewan.
“It was monumental,” Cooper said when asked how the MICA funding helped the company. “Not just in terms of the credibility that comes from that, and from the opportunities to work with mining companies and other things, but also because they were prepared to help advance funds to us to allow us to start to purchase equipment. Without MICA’s grant, I don’t know that we would have gotten to this point.”
Tapping into timely provincial government incentives also helped PCE grow, especially through the Saskatchewan Technology Startup Incentive, which offered eligible companies a 45 per cent tax incentive with minimum $15,000 investment.
“MICA and the Government of Saskatchewan have both been instrumental in allowing us to get to this stage, and we’re forever grateful for that kind of support,” Cooper said, expanding on how that support secures local companies within provincial borders. “You got to go where the flax straw is in our business. So you’re going to be here in Saskatchewan, but a business built here and headquartered here, right? And not some company from the States or from Europe coming in and doing this, a Saskatchewan-built company, built from scratch here by Saskatchewan people keeping that here and making sure that the benefits from what we can do stay in Saskatchewan. That’s a huge thing, and that’s been made possible by the supports of the government for sure.”
Even the constantly changing U.S. tariff situation hasn’t seemed to affect the flax processing markets—both locally and beyond provincial borders.
“We are in a good place for a couple of reasons,” Cooper explained. “First of all, we have customers in Europe, and a lot of our product development focus and sales development focus is based in Canada. It’s good timing, because we can talk about ‘buy Canadian’ and ‘buy local’ and all those kinds of things. There’s a strong appetite in the market for that, so it fits really well with who we are and what we’re trying to do.”
In fact, the tariffs have actually helped PCE in some aspects.
“We do sell horse bedding into the U.S. and there are tariffs on that today,” Cooper said. “I mean, who knows if there will be tomorrow, but there are today. That has added to the price for our customers. So far, it seems like they’re okay with navigating through that in the short term, but on the flip side, it’s helped us out a little bit because of the volatility in the U.S. dollar. Some of the stuff we’re buying has become cheaper, so you try to navigate through them as best as you can. So far, we’ve come out and balanced on the positive side of all that.”
Circling back to the importance of location, the proximity to the American border was another pro to choosing Weyburn as a processing facility.
“We looked in that Weyburn/Estevan corridor partly for that reason, because initially all of our product will be leaving the facility via truck, and a portion of it will be going to the States,” Cooper said. “Being an hour closer to the border than we were in Regina doesn’t hurt.”
Dan Seminuk was named Weyburn facility manager, with a decent number of jobs expected to result from the new business. Wages alone are anticipated to bring more than $3 million per year to the local economy.
“We anticipate between 30 and 40 full time jobs from the facility when it’s running 24/7 and that will probably take us about a year to get to that level,” Cooper said. “In addition to that, there will be secondary opportunities for people who want to do custom baling or trucking, so there will be some contracting jobs. Even just the revenue that farmers will see from that will be helpful, too. All of those pieces really fit with our value of investing in the communities in which we worked, and that’s what we want to do.”
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