Producer
Richardson International Limited
Richardson International Limited (Winnipeg Manitoba; privately held by the Richardson family — one of Canada's wealthiest families; James Richardson & Sons, founded 1857) is Canada's largest Canadian-owned grain and oilseed company and the country's largest canola crusher. Richardson operates 60+ country elevators across the Canadian Prairies, canola crush facilities in Yorkton SK (325,000 tonne/year capacity), Lethbridge AB, Dunmore AB, and Clavet SK — collectively making Richardson the largest canola oil and canola meal producer in Canada. Richardson also operates Vancouver terminal and Thunder Bay terminal for export. As a privately held family company, Richardson is not subject to public shareholder pressure for asset sales or consolidation — giving it strategic continuity that publicly traded competitors lack. Richardson's crushing infrastructure converts raw canola seed into canola oil (food and biodiesel) and canola meal (protein feed for livestock), with both outputs sold domestically and for export.
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Inputs supplied
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Goods downstream
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Facilities
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Stories
What they make
1 input Richardson International Limited supplies
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Goods downstream
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Where they make it
2 facilities
Port of Thunder Bay Grain Terminals (Ontario) →
CAOntario · port
Port of Thunder Bay (Lake Superior; head of the St. Lawrence Seaway system) — Canada's second major canola/grain export hub, routing Prairie canola eastward to European markets via the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence corridor. Richardson International, Viterra, and Cargill all have terminal capacity at Thunder Bay. During the Canada-China canola trade dispute (2019), Thunder Bay's European-routing capacity partially compensated for reduced Pacific coast volumes bound for China. Source: https://www.thunderbay.ca/en/port/
Richardson International Canola Crush Plant — Yorkton, Saskatchewan →
CASaskatchewan · processing
Richardson International's Yorkton Saskatchewan canola crush facility — one of Canada's largest canola crush plants with capacity ~325,000 tonnes/year of canola seed throughput. Produces canola oil (food grade and biodiesel feedstock) and canola meal (high-protein livestock feed). Located in the heart of Saskatchewan's canola belt — within short trucking/rail distance of the highest canola-density farm areas in the world. Richardson's Prairie crushing network (Yorkton + Lethbridge AB + Dunmore AB + Clavet SK) collectively makes Richardson the largest canola crusher in Canada. Source: https://www.richardson.ca/en/operations/canola-crush
What else they do
Business segments
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Canola Crushing & Oil
40%Grain Origination & Handling
35%Flour Milling (Richardson Milling)
15%Global Grain Trading
10%
Intelligence
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Did you know2024
Richardson International crushes Canadian canola into canola oil and canola meal from the same crushing plants. Canola oil from Richardson's crushes flows simultaneously into: (1) food — retail cooking oil and commercial food manufacturing; (2) animal feed (canola meal as protein); and (3) biodiesel/renewable diesel production — canola oil is a primary feedstock for Canadian biodiesel blending mandates. The same crushing plant that produces the canola oil in your grocery store margarine also produces the feedstock for renewable transport fuel and the protein supplement in Canadian chicken and hog feed. Richardson is thus a critical node in three separate supply chains (food, feed, fuel) that Canadian food security, livestock, and climate policy all depend on simultaneously.
Richardson International Limited ↗Origin2023
Richardson International traces to James Richardson & Sons, founded in 1857 in Kingston, Ontario — before Canadian Confederation — as a wholesale produce merchant. The Richardson family moved the business to Winnipeg in 1883 when the CPR opened the Prairie grain economy, becoming one of the dominant Canadian Prairie grain trading houses of the 20th century. The family also helped found the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange (now ICE Futures Canada) — the price discovery mechanism for Prairie wheat and canola futures. Richardson remains privately held through the Richardson family after 167 years, making it the oldest significant grain company in Canada still in its founding family's hands.
Richardson International Limited ↗