A federal economic development initiative will put up a repayable $750,000 contribution for a Quebec facility making wood pellets for the horse litter and home heating markets.
Granulco’s plant is expected to employ 12 people once its $4 million project is complete at Sacre-Coeur, about 110 km east of Chicoutimi.
“To capitalize on this growing market, the company intends to sell its products in Quebec, Ontario and the northeastern U.S.,” the government said in a release Tuesday.
“This project is of critical importance to the community of Sacre-Coeur, an area that has been hard hit by the crisis in the forest industry in recent years,” MP Denis Lebel, minister of state for Canada Economic Development, said in the release.
Granulco’s supplies of sawdust and wood shavings are to come from two local sawmills, an arrangement which the government said will also contribute to the development of forestry in the Cote-Nord region.
The federal loan will flow through Canada Economic Development’s Community Economic Diversification Initiative: Vitality, an initiative intended to “foster the economic growth of Quebec’s communities.”
