Welcome to Vegreville Seed Cleaning Plant

Mar 23, 2023

📍 Vegreville, Alberta

Waves of technological advancement continue to sweep industries across the globe, with no signs of slowing down. Efficiency is skyrocketing and hard work is being made easier. 

But new technologies also mean staying competitive. Operations need to adapt and innovate to meet today’s growing expectations — and be at the forefront of the future.

Fortunately, agriculture is an industry rooted in adaptability. That’s why Jennifer Slasynski, Plant Manager of Vegreville Seed Cleaning Plant, decided to make critical facility upgrades to serve local farmers better. As someone ingrained in the ag industry, she knew the importance of finding an electrical company that truly understands farming, the requirements of grain handling systems and how to tailor technology to their operations.

The Seed Cleaning Plant

The central Alberta plant first opened as a wooden structure in 1952. A lot has changed in farming since the 50’s but Alberta still holds more than a quarter of Canada's field crop area, accounting for 27.6% of the national total. That’s a lot of seeds to sow and clean. And when you’ve been serving the local agricultural economy for 70 years, the need for expanding and enhancing operations is inevitable.


Today, the Vegreville Seeding Plant stands as a much larger facility just outside of town. Hundreds of farmers in the area visit regularly to clean their grain seed for the following year, and they’ve been reaping the benefits of Jennifer’s commitment to facility upgrades.

Plant Upgrades

When Jennifer started as Plant Manager in 2021, she quickly identified the need to not only improve service to current customers, but to attract new ones. She’d sometimes see farmers driving right past her plant, going further down the road to seed cleaning facilities with the latest technological infrastructure. If farmers were willing to go the distance, Jennifer was too.


It was time to make the changes. And as Jennifer was shopping around for electrical services, she chose to put her trust in a company whose experience in agriculture and grain handling systems spoke for itself — a local electrical company called Nichols Electric.


With the help of the Nichols Electric team, many improvements have been made to the plant since, including accommodations for larger hauling trucks, installing an up-to-date debearder and a new elevator leg. Most recently, they installed a colour sorter equipped with cameras to separate seeds from contaminants using puffs of air. Now, farmers go home with higher quality seeds they can then better treat and reseed.


Success in agriculture means keeping an eye to the future. Jennifer hopes to increase seed cleaning capacity and speed in the coming years to further benefit her farmers. She looks forward to working with Nichols Electric to make those hopes into reality. 

“We got a couple of quotes and Nichols’ pricing was competitive. But what set them apart for me was their experience in grain handling systems. I knew I could trust their expertise to help us improve our systems and allow for growth in the future.”


Jennifer Slasynski, Plant Manager - Vegreville Seed Cleaning Plant Ltd

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