SASKATOON, Sask. — Continental Tire and Quality Tire Service chose to celebrate their partnership with the opening of the first commercial tire retread facility in Western Canada today.

The new location will operate as a ContiLifeCycle facility, the umbrella for Continental’s retreading operations.

The new 17,400 sq.-ft. facility is located in Saskatoon and currently employs 15 people. It can produce up to 24,000 retreads per year. The plant is outfitted with new equipment and includes the latest technologies for manufacturing retreads exclusively for the province of Manitoba and Saskatchewan and will service more than 200 customers, according to Continental.

“Growing our ContiLifeCycle distribution across Canada is our most important objective,” said Paul Williams, Continental’s executive vice-president for commercial vehicle tires in the Americas. “Partnering with service focused distributors like Quality Tire Service LTD in an effort to reduce overall driving costs to our fleet customers will be what drives mutual success of both dealers and fleets. We could not have chosen a better partner for the provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba and look forward to many more of these partnerships that also help to bring jobs and boost the Canadian economy into the future.”

The new Saskatoon facility is the first of many plants planned for the region, according to Continental.