Maine farmers, food processors to get $20 million grants

Maine farmers and meals processors will get $20 million in grant cash to assist companies pay for wanted upgrades to gear and infrastructure.

Gov. Janet Mills introduced the brand new grants Friday at Blue Ox Malthouse in Lisbon Falls, one of many 64 companies all through Maine that can obtain grant funding. The cash comes from Mills’ Maine Jobs & Restoration Plan, funded by the Federal American Rescue Plan.

In ready remarks, Mills stated corporations can use the grant cash to pay for gear and upgrades starting from refrigeration models to new water or electrical strains to expanded storage capability.

“Our farmers and meals processors have instructed us they will ship Maine-grown meals objects to extra individuals in additional locations if they will merely make some upgrades,” Mills stated. “With these grants we are able to ship that assist. We can provide them what they want.”

The grants are as small as $41,669 and as giant as $500,000, with a mean of simply over $300,000. 

Joel Alex, the founding father of Blue Ox Malthouse, which supplies malt for breweries and distilleries in Maine, stated he’ll obtain a $500,000 grant, which he stated he’ll use to improve the prevailing facility and develop the corporate’s storage.

“We’ve been at capability for fairly a while, and actually restricted in methods to transfer ahead,” he stated.

Alex began the corporate again in 2013. Immediately, he stated, he has eight workers and is seeking to develop.

Amanda Beal, commissioner of the state Division of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, stated the grant program was impressed partially by the outcomes of a latest survey of meals producers’ wants in Maine. 

A lot of the wants, she stated, targeted on smaller wants resembling upgrades to electrical techniques, new fridges or related items of apparatus.

“These could not seem to be very thrilling issues, nevertheless it’s what they want,” she stated.

In all, the division obtained 850 functions from corporations all through the state. Mills stated the division is actively searching for funding sources to help with the businesses that didn’t obtain funding from this spherical of grants.