Alberta agriculture is adding another notch to its economic diversification belt.
Super-Pufft, one of North America’s largest makers of salty snacks for retailers and national brands, is opening a $50-million potato chip-processing facility in Airdrie.
“Hopefully very soon we’ll open our state-of-the-art facility that is going to cater to Western Canada and western United States,” Yousif Al-Ali, president and CEO of Super-Pufft Snacks said at a press conference. “We are very glad we chose this area, and we have a lot of plans for the city of Airdrie.”
The company, headquartered in Mississauga, Ont., is a major producer of salty snacks, but most of its products are sold under private labels for national retailers, including Loblaws, Wal-Mart, and Shoppers Drug Mart.
Al-Ali said Super-Pufft supplies “almost each and every retailer and national brand in Canada and the U.S.”
“We have an excellent team of people that we work with that make us who we are today,” he said. “So we are very glad to be here.”
When the facility is fully up and running, it will use approximately 78,000 tonnes of potatoes per year. The company is receiving $250,000 from the federal-provincial Canadian Agricultural Partnership program. The Airdrie operation is expected to have a payroll of more than 100.
