The former Merit Functional Foods plant protein facility that has sat vacant in Winnipeg, Man., since 2023 has been purchased out of receivership by the company's former co-CEOs.
Ryan Bracken and Barry Tomiski's bid to buy the shuttered pea and canola processing facility was approved by the Manitoba Court of King's Bench, and closed as of Friday, May 30, 2025, according to Bracken.
As reported earlier, receiver PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) was seeking court approval for the sale of the property after signing a purchase agreement with an unnamed numbered company. Corporate records show Bracken and Tomiski listed as the company's only two directors and officers.
The duo was part of the original group of investors who worked together in the hemp industry at Manitoba Harvest and Hemp Oil Canada before forming a joint venture with Burcon NutraScience to establish Merit Functional Foods in 2019.
Merit completed construction of the 94 thousand square foot food-grade pea and canola processing facility in Winnipeg in 2021, but the plant-protein startup struggled to compete with low-priced pea protein imports from China. Merit entered receivership in early 2023, laying off around 110 staff while owing $95 million at the time to its two main creditors, both Crown corporations: Export Development Canada (EDC) and Farm Credit Canada (FCC). The company also received federal funding for construction of the facility from Protein Industries Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
Financial terms of the sale have not been made public, as of June 2, 2025.
"Our intent is not to start it back up again as a plant protein business," says Bracken, noting many of the same challenges Merit dealt with still exist in the Canadian plant protein market.
Instead, he says their plan is to repurpose the facility. Carter Wilson Equipment Services, based in Quebec, is looking after the sale of the equipment used for processing peas and canola into protein.
Without going into detail about the new venture, Bracken says they are looking to "bring economic value to Manitoba that will hopefully match the intent of Merit in the first place" in terms of employment and capital expenditure.
