The provincial and federal governments are investing more than half a million dollars into a Portage la Prairie based company. Thursday it was announced they would invest more than $582 thousand into Canadian Garden Purees Inc., which is located in the Manitoba Food Development Centre. Founder Kelly Beaulieu says this investment allows them to improve their facilities and operation by providing funding for new equipment.

"Part of that will be to help us work more efficiently with things like pulse crops," she says. "We need to be able to match the pulse crop incoming product at a rate of 8,000 pounds per hour. That's a substantial amount of pulse product to work with, so that infrastructure is part of how this funding will be used."

2015 was a busy year for the company, as they received several awards. Beaulieu says the recent funding, along with those awards, demonstrates they're moving the company in the right direction.

"The business is really in a sweet spot. We have very sustainable proprietary technology that creates a really top quality product. We have the ability to access the wonderful products that are available here from the growers, the pulse, vegetable, and berry crops. The business is situated in the right place," she says.

With their many success over the last few years, Beaulieu says they're looking at growth for the future. She notes the California droughts have left a gap in the market, really opening the door for Manitoba's producers and companies.

"California was normally half the entire supply. Because of drought conditions and energy deficits, they're not able to provide that any more, at least not at good cost. Manitoba has a great opportunity to start feeding that gap."

She says the next year or two may see Canadian Garden Purees move out of the Food Development Centre and into their own facility in order to allow continued growth.