top of page

Benefits to Canada

Oilseed Presses in Canada

The Canadian market is primarily dominated by power oilseed presses which use an expeller to mechanically remove the oil from the crop (Energrow, 2015). This allows for the greatest efficiencies to be reached in terms of the amount of oil that can be recovered from the crop and the speed at which it can be removed, primarily attributed to the expeller’s continuous throughput design (Axtell & Fairman, 1995). Although a significant portion of the Canadian market is dominated by very expensive and high capacity expellers, there are a few smaller, automated oilseed presses available which would suit the low per capita production of soybeans in Nepal (FAO, 2015). One oilseed press of particular interest comes from a company native to Listowel, Ontario. The company is Energrow, and their ES3750B farm-scale oilseed pressing system can extract anywhere from ten percent to thirty percent of the weight of the bean as oil and it further compresses the resulting mash into feed-grade pellets (Energrow, 2015). The machine can extract the oil from up to one tonne of soybeans per day and the unit is small enough to fit in an area of approximately four metres squared (Energrow, 2015). The setup for the ES3750B oilseed press can be seen in figure 3, with its single phase, five horsepower motor driving the press. The company currently sells the presses for around 30,000 Canadian dollars, and they produce the machines entirely in Canada. The company also employs additional support personnel to provide service for their machines that are already in operation (Energrow, 2015). One of Energrow’s business strategies is to use biodiesel produced from their oilseed presses to power their company vehicles, making their business a highly sustainable enterprise (Energrow, 2015).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 3: An advertisement from Energrow for their ES3750B farm-scale oilseed pressing system (Energrow, 2015)

 

Benefits of a Canadian Oilseed Press

The benefit to exporting the Energrow oilseed press to Nepal is that these units are produced entirely in Canada, including most of the materials, raw steel, motors and machined parts (Energrow, 2015). Energrow additionally supports several local machine shops which produce the precision parts needed to build the ES3750B oilseed presses (Energrow, 2015). Although there are a few other companies that distribute imported brands of oilseed presses, Energrow is the only company that manufactures oilseed presses entirely in Canada (Energrow, 2015). Given the local production and distribution of Energrow’s ES3750B, the product is an ideal candidate for exportation to Nepal, as there is substantial opportunity to benefit the Canadian economy. An increase in overall sales resulting from exports to Nepal would allow the company to reach a larger scale, employing a greater number of Canadians for manufacturing, input production, service, support and managerial positions. In table 2, the Energrow ES3750B is compared with other small oilseed presses that are distributed in Canada. As shown in table 2, the Energrow oilseed press is quite competitive with the European models from a pricing standpoint, with the exception of the small manually operated press built by Komet, which costs substantially less but requires substantially more labour for operation. Energrow claims that their press is more suited to processing Soybeans than European models since soybeans are the most common oilseeds pressed on farms in North America, unlike Europe where rapeseed is the most common oilseed pressed (Energrow, 2015). As such, European oilseed presses are designed around pressing rapeseed; however, soybeans are much harder on equipment, and the design and materials used to build the Energrow ES3750B system reflects that data (Energrow, 2015). This would indicate that the Canadian oilseed press from Energrow may be more competitive for Nepalese markets, if the goal is to extract the oil from soybeans as opposed to other oilseeds.

 

Table 2: Comparison of small oilseed presses available in Canada

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

** Golburn Valley Oilmill Inc distributes many different models of oilseed presses. One manual and one mechanical press were displayed in table 2 for comparison.

 

Comparison of Canadian Oilseed Presses

All of the mechanical oilseed presses listed in table 2 offer a similar setup, each having a single phase motor and a cylindrical expeller (Energrow, 2015; Golburn Valley Oilmill Inc., 2015; Golden Green Sustainable resources, 2015). The Komet manual single screw press offers the advantage of a low price point, but becomes quite limited in terms of its capacity and does not process the resulting cake into feed grade pellets (Golburn Valley Oilmill Inc, 2015). The Canadian press is advantageous for export since it would allow Nepalese producers to convert the resulting mash into feed-grade pellets instead of simply recovering the oil, as is the case with the P240R and CA59 German oilseed presses (Energrow, 2015). Additionally, the Canadian press appears to offer a more rugged design and a few more features to aid in the extraction process (Energrow, 2015). Figure 4 below illustrates the German oilseed press distributed by Golden Green Sustainable Resources in Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada. Figure 5 shows the manual Komet oilseed press distributed by Golburn Valley Oilmill in Tisdale, Saskatchewan, Canada. Figure 6 illustrates the setup for the mechanical Komet oilseed press that is also distributed by Golburn Valley Oilmill.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 4: Anton Fries P240R Vegetable Oil Press (Golden Green Sustainable Resources Ltd., 2015)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 5: Komet Single Screw Vegetable Oil Expeller CA 59 1-H (Golburn Valley Oilmill Inc, 2015)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 6: Komet Screw Vegetable Oil Expeller S 120 F (Golburn Valley Oilmill Inc, 2015)

 

Contact details for each of the Canadian companies that sell oilseed presses can be found in table 3 below. The table also lists the website for each company, where more information can be accessed for each respective oilseed press.

 

Table 3: Contact details for Canadian companies that manufacture or distribute low-output oilseed presses in Canada

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Information in table 3 is from (Energrow, 2015; Golburn Valley Oilmill Inc., 2015; Golden Green Sustainable resources, 2015) for each respective company.

 

 

bottom of page