MANOR, Sask. — The ability to pivot and strike out in another direction is a path many agricultural producers have embarked on, and sometimes those big gambles pay off. Such is the case with KBI Seed Processing — a family business going four generations strong and counting.
“My dad moved to the farm in the early ‘80s, and he got his pedigree seed growers licence,” said Tamara Hildebrandt of her father, Brian Kennett. “To go along with that, he built a small seed cleaning plant to clean both his pedigree seed and then local farmers’ bin-run seed.
“I grew up on this yard where the seed cleaning plant is, me and my four siblings. Dad grew it over time.”
Back then, the seed cleaning business was known widely as Sunny K Seeds, officially established in 1984 on the family farm near Manor. Fast forward to 2010, and the operation also became organic certified and de-hulling of ancient grains was added into the mix at the busy processing plant.
A decade further along the timeline, another major change came to the family business. With a global pandemic creating uncertainty for everyone, and Brian contemplating retirement, Hildebrandt, Brian’s brother Daren Kennett, and Darren’s son Mason Kennett joined forces under the newly-minted KBI Seed Processing banner.
“We’ve since worked on our food certification and expanded to have a colour sorter machine and a bagging line so that we can go directly to mills and bakeries and sell our locally grown grains as food for both human consumption and for animals—feed or pet food,” Hildebrandt explained.
“It was a pretty long process of doing research studies, and we had to have a third party come in and do an assessment on the efficiency and the efficiency analysis of what it would be if we did the expansion,” Hildebrandt recalled.
Taking over the family business during Covid made for interesting times, as Hildebrandt pointed out. But it was drawing on the unique skillsets of all involved that brought KBI Seed Processing to the success it now enjoys.
Daren, for example, made his career in the feed business, initially with Cargill—his Bachelor of Science, Agricultural Economics from the U of S in hand—then Nutreco and later Viterra before being a founding shareholder in Hi-Pro Feeds.
Hildebrandt was accustomed to a much different world before returning to the farm.
“My background is more human resources and not-for-profit, and in 2020 that was turned upside down—really affected by Covid,” she said of her 14-year career. “Not everyone just coming from an agriculture background also has a huge benefit to our value-added, because I think especially for farmers, all the paperwork and things like that can be very overwhelming because that’s not usually their wheelhouse.”
Future steps
Next on the horizon for KBI is entering the retail world with its ready-to-mill products available to consumers. Interest in ancient grains such as spelt, einkorn, hard red spring wheat, rye and flax has been on the rise for many years, mainly due to health-conscious individuals.
“We are just launching in the next handful of weeks here, our small packaging,” Hildebrandt confirmed. “This is the first time we’ve had a product put on the shelf, so it will be whole grains and flax that people would mill at home, a ready-to-mill [product]. We’re going to do an online store, and available for pickup as well from our farm, and then shipped out anywhere in Canada.”
The idea to branch out to a different market arose from the fact that all the inputs were already set up, it would just be on a smaller scale.
“We thought, ‘well, we have all the certifications, we’re doing all of that stuff already, let’s try to take it one step further and see how that goes’,” Hildebrandt said. “Maybe we’ll end up doing markets, or getting into local stores, or maybe we’ll just stick to online. It all depends on what the consumer is looking for.”
Another huge bonus is the ability to know exactly where the product came from—right down to the land location if need be.
“The traceability for the consumers—we can trace exactly where every product came from, tracing the growers, and having that connection—the farm-to-table idea,” Hildebrandt said. “Saskatchewan is good at growing things, but we’re usually pretty good at just exporting it and not getting all the value-added pieces.”
The foray into retail sales also introduces a wider benefit to producers from miles around where that grain is sourced, helping to bolster the local economy around Manor and sharing success with neighbours.
Looking to the next generation
So what does Brian think of all this advancement to the seed cleaning business he started 40 years ago?
“He’s pretty excited,” Hildebrandt said. “He’s moved up to Cochrane, Alberta. He’s enjoying his retirement, but I always refer to him as my free consultant! You know, 35 years of grain processing, you learn a lot, and you know a lot of details about how everything runs, and he had built lots of it by hand. He’s a great resource.”
The future of KBI looks bright as Hildebrandt's eldest son, 13-year-old Eli, has taken a keen interest in farming life.
“He loves farming,” Hildebrandt said, adding that Eli was a big help with farming operations again this year. “School got in the way there at the end, which he wasn’t overly happy about!”
She recalls how even as a small kid, Eli would join his dad in the air seeder or combine, happily spending the day in the field.
“He’d be just in his car seat strapped in there, and that was his happy place,” Hildebrandt described. “He absolutely loved farming.”
As with most farm families, some kids seem to catch the bug right off the bat, while the seed needs to grow a little bit for others.
“The other two, they enjoy it, but they maybe don’t have quite the same early love for it,” Hildebrandt said. “But I didn’t either. I never thought I’d be back in agriculture, and what appealed to me actually is the business side of agriculture, and it’s becoming more and more of a big business.”
