New opportunities in Borden-Carleton range from steel to donuts

The mayor of Borden-Carleton reports the mood in the town is hopeful after the announcement of some big money coming itsway.

The recipients of grants from a $2 million transition fund set up by McCain after it closed its potato processing plant in 2014 were announced Tuesday.

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"We're glad to get all the support we can out this way, we certainly need it and we need more jobs this way so it was great," said Mayor Dean Sexton

Nine businesses and the municipal government received grants. The amounts ranged from $7,000 to $1 million. The 10 successful applicants announced in a press release include:

MacDougall Steel: $1 million.
Silliker Glass: $300,000.
Atlantic Beef Products: $142,000.
Mrs. Dunsters: $26,000.
Tree Top Haven: $25,000.
Island Apple Storage: $25,000.
P.E.I.Handpie Company: $7,000.
Town Of Borden-Carleton: $50,000.
Canadian Cold Storage: $200,000 (subject to project approval).
Larkins Poultry: $225,000 (subject to project approval).

Town hopes to clean up

Sexton says the town is using its $50,000 to develop a master plan for the town and its development and to find ways to encourage more tourism.

"Rather than have a town that everyone passes by we're hoping to make it into a must-see tourism destination," said Sexton

"Everybody wants something done with Borden, since it's the entrance to the province."

New jobs

Along with the money announcement, came the hope of around 328 jobs, that number was based on the projections of each of the nine companies, with the majority expected to come from MacDougall Steel Erectors. That is raising the hopes of the mayor even more, hopingnew jobs will bring new development.

"What's happening here in Borden it's an older town and older homes," said Sexton.

"What young people want and most of these workers are going to be young people and they want to be in modern homes and in subdivisions, so really we have to start looking at doing thatrepairing some of the older houses or tearing them down and building new ones."

New Business

There is new construction included in the funded projects.

Island Apple Storage Association willbuild a new controlled atmosphere facility to holdup to 1,000 bins of apples.

Canadian Cold Storage wishes to build a facility to holdup to 2.3 million kilograms and Larkin Brothers will use the funds to establish a new poultry processing plant. These two still have to complete some steps for the business to go ahead, such as financing and environmental assessments.

If they don't go through with the plan, the money will go back into the pot. The steering committee will reopen the process, have another look at the applications, and awardthe money to someone else.

New Opportunities

Paul Larkin, co-owner of Larkin Brothers Poultry hopes that won't be the situation.

He sees this money as a potential to grown his industry.

"We're working at keeping the poultry industry alive on P.E.I.," he said

Larkin said the big draw to Borden-Carleton was the already existing meat processing plant, that his business hopes to use the waste treatment facilities already there for the beef plant. Larkin said right now they work with another facility on the Island, and that relationship is good, but a new facility will help move their productsto bigger markets.

"If we're going to get into the Sobeys and possibly the Superstores, they all require more stringent regulations," he said.

"That's the main reason we're going down the path we're going, is to try and increase volume and to do that we need to get into those stores. We need to get into that volume of people going through their facilities to increase our sales."

Larkin predicts eventually he will provide 10-15 full-time, year-round jobs, if all goes according to plan.

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