INKERMAN -Skeletal steel girders are rising behind the wooden 1950s-era feed mill here, as the operators have recently begun a near-total rebuild of the facility over the next 18 months.

"It’s basically a building replacement," manager John Toonders says of the project at New Life Mills Limited, located near the middle of the hamlet. "We’re trying to move ourselves into the 21st Century."

While technically not an expansion in capacity, Toonders explains that the new building will accommodate future additions. The existing structure has otherwise reached its limit for further growth, after a series of add-ons over the years.

"Hopefully, we’re going to realize a lot of efficiencies out of this. And the ability to expand is there, because we’re capped the way we are today."

Part of the increase in efficiency involves better handling of today’s much larger incoming trucks, compared to those of 50 years ago. "In the 1950s, a big truck would’ve been 24 tonnes. Today we’re looking at 40," the manager says.

Existing bins on site can take those larger loads, when they are nearly empty. Logistically, that means a greater reliance on just-in-time deliveries, which come at a premium. He says the new mill will enjoy greater flexibility because the project includes the installation of new 80-tonne bins, supplementing those already in use for incoming loads of grain.

Pelleting and processing equipment inside the current mill building, much of it updated over the past 10 years, will also be re-used and relocated inside the new steel mill building currently under construction.

Measuring 40-by-60-feet, and 86-feet high, the building should be finished in the next six to eight months, according to Toonders. Another year of demolition and construction work will follow, as the old wooden mill is razed and new office space built on its footprint. The existing office, perched on the edge of SD&G County Rd. 3, in what used to be a house, will also come down, along with a low tin addition attached at its rear.

"We’ve got to work around all this construction for the next year and a half," he says, adding an open house event will be held once the ordeal - short-term pain for long-term gain - is over.

The process of seeking various regulatory approvals and permits took a year before construction could begin, he says.

One of three Ontario mills owned by Hanover-based New Life Mills, the operation takes in local corn, soybeans and cereals to make feed rations for commercial livestock. Until 2002, the Inkerman site was known as MacDonald Feeds, a division of New Life Mills. Prior to the mid-1980s, brothers Max and Jack Saunders ran the mill for many years.

Employing 15 people, the operation competes for business in Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec, processing crops and selling feed within the region.

"We want to thank our customers. We wouldn’t be doing this without them," says Toonders. While declining to discuss the dollar value of the company’s Inkerman development, he notes that it is "important to this area."