SunOpta and Colorado Mills Come Together for Organic Oils

"TORONTO, March 11, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- SunOpta Inc. (Nasdaq:STKL) (TSX:SOY) today announced that it has entered into an agreement to establish a joint venture with Colorado Mills LLC ("Colorado Mills") of Lamar Colorado, to build and operate an organic and natural vegetable oil refining facility. The venture will be operated as Colorado Sun Oil Processing LLC and will be owned 50% by SunOpta and 50% by Colorado Mills. The processing facility will be located in Lamar, Colorado, adjacent to Colorado Mills' existing crude oil processing facility, and will be capable of refining approximately 35 million pounds annually of natural and organic sunflower, soybean and canola oils. The refining facility is expected to be operational late in 2008.

SunOpta has had a business relationship with Colorado Mills for a number of years, and in 2006 financed an expansion of existing facilities to increase organic oil seed crushing capacity to meet SunOpta's growing organic oil requirements. This investment has proven successful and has led to the establishment of this venture. Once in production, the joint venture will refine existing crude oil for both Colorado Mills and SunOpta and provide cost efficiencies and increased capacity to service fast growing markets."

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