1948 - Seeing an opportunity, St. Jean-Baptiste native Alfred Roy purchases mobile seed cleaner and cleans grains and yellow peas on farms; Opens contracts with pea buyers in Montreal & Toronto, and starts shipping boxcars to Eastern Canada.
1956 - Mr. Roy moves old icehouse from Morris to St. Jean and turns it into a seed cleaning plant; builds small warehouse for bagged product.
1957 - Mr. Roy incorporates Alfred Roy Trading Co. Ltd.; begins exporting wheat to northern US seed wheat market.
1960 - Alfred Roy Trading buys a couple of farms to establish cattle feedlot to utilize screenings from pea plant.
1961 - Alfred Roy Trading installs pea splitting equipment in answer to demands for split peas.
60's - US seed wheat market dries up; continues cleaning cereal seeds for Red River Valley market; First small, direct yellow pea sales to the UK.
1971 - 1972 - Alfred Roy hands over management to son-in-law Richard Sabourin, agricultural economist.
1975 - Agronomist Florent Beaudette joins company after 13 years experience in export trade promotion.
1977 - First commercial production of lentils in Red River Valley; Roy Legumex Inc. incorporated (Alfred Roy Trading continues to operate farms and feedlot); Decision made to build new processing plant; Robert Lafond hired as plant manager.
1979 - Roy Legumex Inc. contracts faba beans & canary seed; new $1.5M plant opened; first pea sales to Cuba.
1981 - First custom cleaning arrangement for lentils in Saskatchewan; Roy Legumex Inc. becomes major player in production and marketing of Saskatchewan lentils.
80's & 90's - Diversification into special crops throughout the Prairies moves quickly and Roy Legumex Inc. is part of it; custom cleaning arrangements are made with many of the dozens of new special crop processing plants which spring up from the Red River to north of Edmonton; Robert Lafond moves from plant to office in early 80's and becomes General Manager in 1988.
1995 - Richard Sabourin's son, Ivan, represents the 3rd generation in the company as he joins Roy Legumex Inc. as a trader.
1996 - Roy Legumex Inc. enters into partnership with Duncan Seeds Ltd. in Morden and converts the Duncan plant into a state-of-the-art dry bean processing facility.
1998 - Celebrated 50 years of service to prairie special crop growers.
1999 - Roy Legumex Inc. builds a new 3500 sq-ft office; Brigitte, Richard's daughter, joins the company as trader.
2000 - A group of producers partners with Roy Legumex Inc. to build new, state-of-the-art bean processing facility in Plum Coulee MB, named Bison Commodities; Roy Legumex Inc. adds locally produced, edible soybeans to its product list.
2002 - Ivan named president of the company; Brigitte named vice-president.
2003 - Duncan Seeds, along with Roy Legumex Inc., completes deal to purchase the Bison facility exclusively.
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