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FRIDAY, April 22, 2016
www.kamloopsthisweek.com
LOCAL NEWS Hops Canada founder Joey Bedard (left) and TIB Coun. Howard Campbell on the farm beside the North Thompson River. The band is two-thirds owner of the brokerage and farm now under development. CAM FORTEMS/KTW
HOP DREAMS Joey Bedard has teamed up with the TIB on a venture to grow hops along the North Thompson River
CAM FORTEMS STAFF REPORTER cam@kamloopsthisweek.com
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tanding amid a barren forest of poles laid out in a grid and topped by cables, Joey Bedard interrupts a tour of his farm to take a call. It’s Sanjay, from India. He wants hops, the cones used for centuries both to preserve beer and give it complex taste. Sanjay is in luck: Bedard has hops. This year, from his warehouse at High Country Cold Storage nearby, Bedard estimates he will sell more than $2 million worth of the flowering plant from Hops Canada, his partnership with the Tk’emlups Indian Band. The hops, in pelletized form, are sourced from seven countries and, in turn, resold all over the world. Customers are in South Africa, Spain and Chile and elsewhere. “We’re trying to get into Poland,” said the 27-yearold entrepreneur who lasted two weeks in university
after graduating high school in Ontario before quitting to form a series of companies that led to his latest venture. Hops Canada, a brokerage company that buys and resells hops, is paying the operating bills down on the farm — a field that features what Bedard calls a “million-dollar view, literally” — an investment in irrigation, equipment and labour. The view is 220 acres of poles and wire beside the North Thompson River across from Westsyde. Beneath them are 390,000 hop plants — making it the largest hop farm in
HOPS IN KAMLOOPS •
240 acres Hops Canada’s TIB farm, including 20 acres of organic hops
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390,000 hop plants in the ground
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300,000-350,000 pounds of production is the goal when plants are mature
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6,000 posts in the ground
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Two million feet of wire stays
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75 miles of drip tube irrigation, making it the largest drip system in the Interior
Hop varieties in the ground include Cascade, Chinook, Zeus, Fuggle, Centennial, Goldings, Mount Hood, Newport. Canada and rivalling some of those in Washington state and Hallertau, Germany, the largest hop-producing regions in the world. The company planted 65 acres beginning in March last year and planted the remaining 155 acres this spring. According to a study written last year for the provincial and federal agriculture ministries, the demand for hops is exploding, lit by the seemingly limitless growth of craft beer. Jan Zeschky, a beer writer for the Province newspaper, tallied 130 craft breweries in B.C. if the 28 scheduled in
2016 open their doors. Many of those brewers will produce IPAs, hopheavy beers that are driving much of the growth. So far, however, Bedard said B.C. brewers have not been in the forefront of customers of his brokerage. That may change when Hops Canada begins producing an estimated $2.5 to $3.5 million worth of hops by the time the plants reach peak production in three years.
HOPPING AROUND
Bedard has the soul of a farmer, the voice of a salesman and the energy of a
squirrel. While he grew up in a farming area in Ontario, his business experience is in contracting to build remote camps in Northern Alberta for the oil patch, as well as remote fishing camps on B.C.’s West Coast. He created and sold a number of companies before starting Hops Canada. He sold two-thirds of Hops Canada, which he started last year, to Tk’emlups Indian Band. The band, in turn, provided capital to develop the farm. With a two-year-old at home, Bedard said he
good for “usIt’s economically and for the social benefits. We’re always looking for employment for band members.
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— HOWARD CAMPBELL TIB councillor
wanted to get away from remote locations and find a business base. His original plan was to open a craft brewery, but the market is flooded with new entrants. That led him into interest in supplying those brewers. Howard Campbell, a TIB councillor responsible for economic development, said the band sees a longterm revenue stream as well as permanent and seasonal jobs. Right now, the company employs about 10 people year-round, with another 15 to 20 seasonally. “It’s good for us economically and for the social ben-