Company Description:

Using patented technology, Burcon extracts valuable proteins from Canola meal.In 1956, the nutritional value of rapeseed oil was called into question, owing to its high quotient of undesirable eicosenoic and erucic fatty acids. Canadian plant breeders responded by creating strains of rapeseed with low amounts of these undesired substances. The Canadian Health and Welfare Department recommended industry-wide conversion to the new strains, and agribusiness leadership responded with voluntary limits on erucic acid in oil products effective December 1, 1973. Around the same time, animal nutritionists raised concerns about the sharp-tasting, anti-nutritive glucosinolates that were undermining the utility of Canola meal (the byproduct left over from oil extraction) as animal feed. In 1974, Dr. Baldur Stefansson of the University of Manitoba developed the first double low" variety of rapeseed