Leading Flax Seed Suppliers: Part VI

Here we continue our analysis of the leading flaxseed suppliers at the base of the flaxseed industry pyramid.

Port Royal Mills

I wasn't able to find a website for Port Royal Mills. They are based in Aurora, Ontario and I take it their specialty is hard wheat flour and not flaxseeds.

Prairie Flax Products, Inc.

Prairie Flax Products is a private company based in MacGregor Manitoba. They were founded in 1999. They sell their milled flaxseed in one pound jars for convenient home use as well as in 50 pound bags, 2,000 pound bulk bags and in full load bulk semi trailer lots.


Randolph & James Flax Mills Ltd.

Randolph & James Flax Mills is a company employing eight people and based in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. Their sales are under one million annually and I wasn't able to find a website for them.

Sabourin Seed Service Ltd.

Sabourin Seed Service is a private company based in St. John Baptiste, Manitoba. They are exporters of sun-flower seeds - bird food and human consumption; milo - white and red millet safflower, peas, canary seed, flax and buckwheat.

Saskatchewan Wheat Pool

Saskatchewan Wheat Pool is a publicly traded company and the largest grain handler and marketer in Saskatchewan. The company's shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol SWP.

Triple S Seeds Ltd.

Triple "S" Seeds produces seeds of all cereal crops, canola, flax, hemp and grass. They are based in Grandview Manitoba and have recently started selling flaxseed to customers from their web site.


___________________________
The image of whole flaxseeds above was borrowed from the Sabourin Seed Service website.

Flaxseed and Omega 3 Substitutes

Flax seeds are the richest source of omega 3 essential fatty acids. They are also the most inexpensive source of omega 3 fats per gram.

But if you can't muster the thought of eating ground flaxseed every day, the two highest-quality substitutes would be salmon and walnuts.

To substitute for 2 tablespoons of ground flaxseeds (which have 3.1 grams of Omega 3 fats) you'd need to eat about 1/3 of a cup of walnuts or almost six ounces of Chinook Salmon.

Other fatty fish also have high levels of Omega 3's and are very good for you. To see some other fatty fish options, check out the Cook's Thesaurus. This is a fabulous site with beautiful photos of thousands of ingredients. If you have run out of some ingredient that you need for your recipe, they make suggestions as to which foods would make the closest substitutes. The photo of the Chinook Salmon above was borrowed from their site.

Leading Flax Seed Suppliers: Part V

This is a continuation of our analysis of the leading flaxseed suppliers at the base of the flaxseed industry pyramid.


Midlake Specialty Food Products

Midlake is a private company based out of Arborg Manitoba. They supply bagged and bulk flaxseed. I wasn't able to find a website for them, but it appears that they are a larger operation. They've also recently started a biodiesel plant; Bifrost Bio-Blends.

Northern Lights Flax

Northern Lights Flax is a private company based out of Surrey, British Columbia. They sell whole flaxseeds in 500g, 5 kg and 25 kg bags. Organic and conventional flax are available. They note that their whole flaxseed has a shelf life of over one year if stored (unground) at room temperature. Their website has not been updated for about two years. It's hard to say whether they have a successful and growing business.

Northern Quinoa Corp

Northern Quinoa is a private company based out of Kamsack, Saskatchewan. They specialize in processing and distributing quionoa but also deal with other grains including flaxseed. They were founded in 1995.

Packaging ranges from one pound to two thousand pound totes with fifty pound poly bags being the most common. Order sizes range from ten pounds to container loads which are shipped throughout Canada, United States, Mexico and Europe. Their flax seed products include milled brown flax, golden flax, golden milled and brown flax.

Parent Seed Farms Ltd.

Parent Seed Farms is located in St. Joseph, Manitoba. They have 35 employees and have been operating for 36 years. For human consumption, they export peas, beans, lentils and chickpeas. Their flax seed exports are limited to birdfood consumption. For this reason we won't add them to our short list.

Pizzey’s Milling & Baking Co.

Here's a company that specializes only in flax seeds. Pizzey's Milling was established in 1991. They started as a family farming operation, became a bakery and then, according to their website, evolved into "North America's largest, most experienced specialty-flaxseed ingredient supplier."

They have distribution centers in Angusville, Manitoba, Gurnee, Illinois, St Jospeh, Montana, Buffalo New York and Etobicoke, Ontario. This company definitely goes on our short list.


__________________
The above photo is a Flax field, in Saskatchewan. The artist is Michael Lewis.

Leading Flaxseed Suppliers: Part IV

Here we continue our analysis of the leading flaxseed suppliers at the base of the flaxseed industry pyramid.


InfraReady Products Limited

InfraReady is a private company operating from Saskatoon Saskatchewan. They have 23 employees. They specialize in processing plant-derived products using infrared heating technology. Their product lines are based on the staple foods of peas, rice, specialty grains, oilseed, lentils and beans. I take it they process flax seeds using the infrared heating technology and then sell this to food manufacturers as ingredients toward an end-product such as pizza dough or bread. In this sense they compete with other flaxseed ingredient suppliers such as Acatris, American Health and Nutrition, Bioriginal Food & Science, Buckton Scott, Flanquart, Golden Seed Farms, Pizzey's Milling, Prairie Flax Products and Statfold Seed Oil Development. See more info about these applications at the Functional Foods & Nutraceuticals website.

Johnson Seeds

Johnson Seeds is a small company based in Arborg, Manitoba. They employ 23 people and specialize in forage seeds, turf grasses, canary seed, flax, peas and canola.

Keystone Grain Ltd.

Keystone Grain is a private company based in Winkler Manitoba. They were founded in 1993 and specialize in sunflowers and sunflower products. They are the largest exporter and processor of sunflower products in Canada. As sunflowers are their specialty, we'll leave them out of our short-list for now.


Klagenberg Farms Ltd.

Klagenberg Farms is located in St. Andrews, Manitoba. They export bagged, bulk and cargo lots of brown and yellow flaxseed. The company doesn't appear to have a website. It's hard to tell if they are a very small company or how long they have been around. We'll leave them off the short list for now.


Larsen Seeds

Larsen Seeds is based in Aylsham, Saskatchewan. I wasn't able to find much online info about them.

Loyns Seed Farm

Loyns Seed Farm is based in Naicam Saskatchewan. I wasn't able to find online info about them either.