Business View Civil and Municipal | May 2021

146 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL MAY 2021 to work together, to get information quickly to them, and do things to accommodate the plant. The partnership made a huge difference to both communities.” Roquette has almost completed work on the $600 million pea-processing facility, which will produce pea protein for food and sports nutrition products, as well as food-grade starches and pea cream for animal feed. “We were very fortunate to land the Roquette processing facility in our region,” says Blight. “With the estimated cost of $600 million, that would be the most significant global investment dedicated to pea protein to date in the world, so that’s absolutely incredible.” Being able to attract businesses of that size has led to even more investment in the region. Simplot, a potato processing plant that was already located in the area, decided to up their ante. They recently invested $460 million to expand the current facility to 460,000-square- feet from its previous 180,000. The expansion has doubled the plant’s need for potatoes from regional growers and increased its employment from 87 to 150 new full-time positions. Ferris admits, “When we went public with Roquette, that really kickstarted a lot of interest in the region, and that certainly got Simplot interested, even though they were already here. We said to them, ‘you know, we work together as partners, and if you’re ever thinking of expanding, give us a call, we will help you.’ And within six months, we had a plant expansion and a lot of smaller companies calling us to see if we had room for them.” Blight adds, “Something that’s been noted by Reeve, Kameron Blight