UK family office invests in agbio

Wheatsheaf Investments, the early stage investment arm of the Grosvenor family office, has invested $5 million into Enterra Feed, a Vancouver-based animal feed producer.

This is the second part of a $10 million round of fundraising; Avrio Capital, the Canadian agri investment firm, injected $5 million into the feed company earlier this year, according to Brad Marchant, chief executive of Enterra Feed.

Marchant is positive about the future of investment into the agbio sector. “We’re seeing a lot of interest in the company now that we have our first plant built, so we’re confident there will be more investors looking at the project,” he told Agri Investor.

Enterra Feed, which produces animal feed out of organic waste products, will use this latest tranche of funding to develop a second animal feed product and further its plans to build a second animal feed production facility. It already has one facility in Langley, British Columbia.

The process of converting agbio waste into animal feed is not widely practiced as there are only a few companies producing animal feed in this wayin the US and Europe, according to Marchant. Increasing world demand for better fed poultry and fish, through the use of higher protein feed, is central to the company’s ethos. And this can be achieved by using industrial food waste such as fruit and vegetables, which would ordinarily go to landfill, said Marchant.

The company is already selling its first protein animal feed product in the US and is awaiting approval from regulators in Canada. “Our five year plan is to build more facilities in the US and Europe, using a combination of equity and bank [debt] financing.  We’re hoping to build three to four processing facilities in the near future,” said Marchant.

Wheatsheaf Investments focuses on investments in resource efficiency, especially food and energy.