A hops company is getting a helping hand to help grow the province's craft brewery industry.
The federal and B.C. governments announced $285,000 in funding would be provided to the B.C. Hop Co., an Abbotsford business that supplies the province’s brewers with locally-grown dry hops..
Dwayne Stewart, general manager of BC Hop Co., calls the government support critical to the success of their facility.
"(This funding) will help us obtain and install the most innovative hop processing equipment in the world,” said Stewart in a media release
The funding will be put towards new technology from Europe that will kiln dry the hops under controlled conditions. The process helps reduce rancidity and the degradation of alpha acids and essential oils improving product colour and cone structure of the dried hops. The technology is new to Canada and the goal is to produce a world-class product so producers can remain competitive in both the local and international markets.
The money was provided through Growing Forward 2, a five-year $3-billion federal-provincial program to grow Canada’s agricultural sector. In B.C., the federal and provincial governments is to invest an estimated $427 million in the program from 2013-2018
