WINTERMAR FARMS (1989) LTD.

Originally incorporated in the 1960’s by the Martin family, Wintermar Farms has followed an interesting metamorphosis out of dairy farming. In 1989 brothers Keith and Quentin started construction of the existing seed production and processing facility on Wintermar's Katherine Street farm. Keith’s eldest son Craig joined shortly after, and the seed business and farming operation continued steady growth. Cribit Seeds was registered as a business and became the seed marketing brand to distinguish it from the farming operation. During the late 1980’s and 90’s an equity position was also held in First Line Seeds Ltd. based in Guelph. This evolved into our current relationship as a seed producer, processing location and retailer of DeKalb brand soybeans.

To fully utilize our cleaning facility, we began cleaning grain for the food and feed industry. By this time we had several long term employees and Craig’s brother Jason and brother-in-law Andrew joined the business. Good human resource drove growth and in 2005 the opportunity arose to purchase the food grain processing portion of a Fergus based business, Gilbertson and Page (Canada) Inc. and that equipment was placed in a new facility on the farm at 265 Katherine St S.

Wintermar Grains was then registered as the food grain business portion of the operation that contracts Ontario farmers to grow barley, oats, wheat and rye. These grains are pearled, dehulled, roasted or flaked into products for baking, soup or beverage manufacturing. The majority of Wintermar Grains products are distributed by BSG Canada.

In 2010-11, 13-14 and again in 2017 major reinvestments into the seed business took place with the construction of a seed treatment tower, doubling receiving and storage, tripling the seed warehousing and packaging automation. This facility accurately applies the latest seed treatment technology to large volumes of packaged or bulk seed of the latest genetics provided by DeKalb and SeCan.