HAVELOCK, Ontario – The Ontario government is supporting a more than $37 million investment by Kawartha Ethanol with $2.5 million through the Ontario Together Fund. The new investment will help the Havelock-based company expand its local production capabilities to manufacture high-grade, pure ethanol for hand sanitizers and disinfectants to help our continued fight against COVID-19.
“Through the Ontario Together Fund, our government is making strategic investments in domestic businesses with the ideas and solutions to help us through this pandemic and put us on the road to economic recovery,” said Vic Fedeli, minister of economic development, job creation and trade. “Kawartha Ethanol and their new capacity to make high-grade ethanol for sanitizer is another example of Ontario innovation at its very best. Ontario manufacturers continue to enhance our resilience to any challenge while strengthening our economy.”
Supporting innovative projects like Kawartha Ethanol’s is why Ontario has invested an additional $50 million in the renewed Ontario Together Fund in 2021–22. The fund will continue to support local innovators and businesses to further enhance Ontario’s domestic supply chain capacity, promote Ontario’s MedTech ecosystem and build up our manufacturing sector to ensure the province is well-prepared for future challenges.
“Kawartha Ethanol is appreciative of this critical support from the government of Ontario that will enhance our efforts to address the challenges of the pandemic while expanding with new products in new markets and creating and retaining jobs in the region. As one of the largest private employers in Peterborough County, the Drain Bros. family of companies, including Kawartha Ethanol will continue to contribute to a strong Made in Ontario economy in future, thanks in part to this funding support,” said Darrell Drain, president of Kawartha Ethanol.
The renewed Ontario Together Fund is focused on supporting homegrown manufacturing and innovation to combat COVID-19 and providing other goods critical to the health, safety, and security of Ontarians beyond this pandemic. It is doing so under the following strategic pillars:
- Strengthening Ontario’s domestic manufacturing capacity.
- Supporting homegrown technologies and innovative solutions.
- Strengthening Ontario’s MedTech ecosystem.
Kawartha Ethanol’s corn ethanol production facility has the capacity to produce 100 million litres of fuel-grade ethanol annually. With this new investment, it will also have the capacity to produce 60 million litres of high-grade pure ethanol for sanitizer each year.
“Well-paying, local jobs in Havelock will be created and protected with this $37 million investment. These jobs will support families and local businesses in the township now and years into the future,” said Dave Smith, MPP for Peterborough-Kawartha. “Kawartha Ethanol will now be able to retool to support the domestic manufacturing of products used to keep people and workplaces safe.”
Since its launch in April 2020, the Ontario Together Fund has helped businesses with innovative ideas and solutions to retool or adapt their operations to produce supplies and equipment for the health care sector and frontline workers. Some successful Ontario Together Fund recipients include:
- Siemens Healthineers, who will increase the manufacturing capacity of the epoc© Test Card at their Ottawa manufacturing facility. The project will include two-Test Card lines plus packaging automation. The company expects each line to have two times the output of currently operating lines.
- Empack Spraytech, a Brampton-based, privately-owned family operated business, will manufacture more than four million surface disinfectant wipes in a new 100,000 square-foot Barrie manufacturing facility.
- Guelph-based Linamar Corp., which retooled its assembly line to manufacture ventilator components to produce 10,000 Ontario-made e700 ventilators, in partnership with O-Two Medical Technologies and Bombardier.
Healthy people are essential for a healthy economy. Ontario’s Action Plan: Protecting People’s Health and Our Economy provides the resources necessary to finish the battle with COVID-19, building on the government’s record investments to protect health and jobs during the global pandemic.
