The plant’s 250-odd workers, represented by the Syndicat des salaries de la fromagerie — an arm of Centrale des syndicats democratiques (CSD) — have voted 73 per cent to ratify an agreement in principle with the company and were to return to work Monday (Aug. 8), the union said in a release Wednesday.

Off the job since June 29, the employees “will gradually return to work next week to clean the plant in order to resume cheese production as soon as possible,” Agropur said in a separate statement Wednesday.

Producteurs de lait du Quebec president Daniel Gobeil on July 22 had written to the company, reiterating the dairy farmer group’s request for at least a minimal level of processing work to continue at the facility, to prevent milk waste.

Quebec media reports put the Granby plant’s processing capacity at about 800,000 litres per day.

The Granby plant will now start receiving milk “in the coming weeks,” Agropur said Wednesday, which “will help ensure the supply of our customers and avoid further food waste.”

Agropur said it “believes that it has reached an agreement with the employees that will ensure stability for the coming years.”

The new collective agreement expires July 23, 2026, the union said.

“If we have reached an agreement that suits our members, it is because they have remained united throughout the conflict,” CSD counsel Bernard Cournoyer said in the union’s release.

The deal includes increases of between 2.5 and 3.5 per cent in annual worker salaries, increased RRSP contributions from the company and concessions on allowances and advances due to disability-related absences, and on choosing vacation days, the union said. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The co-operative said June 17 it will invest $34 million in the former Scotsburn plant at Truro, to “redefine the space within the plant (and) support the development of several business opportunities for Agropur, especially in a growing market.”

Specifically, the capital investment will go to “allow the creation of a new extrusion line for value-added innovation in the premium novelties segment.”

The Truro plant will then become one of Agropur’s “centres of excellence for extrusion-type frozen products,” the co-op said.

In the frozen novelties business, extrusion is used to produce various figures or shapes, which can then retain those forms during later handling and further-processing.

Jeannie van Dyk, the Agropur board’s vice-president, described the move as “the largest plant capital investments made in Canada for the last five years,” adding it “confirms the importance of the Atlantic region for Agropur and our commitment to remain a major player in the region and to pursue the opportunities it presents.”

“The Truro ice cream plant is known for its expertise in dairy processing and the production of frozen treats, and we are very pleased to be able to innovate in this area. Several new projects will be possible because of this investment,” Dominique Benoit, Agropur’s senior vice-president for institutional affairs, said in the same release.

Agropur’s plans to invest in new frozen dairy products for Canada follow an announcement in April from the Canadian arm of food processor Unilever, with similar plans to expand the frozen dessert portfolio it produces at Simcoe, Ont.

Other companies, however, such as French yogurt maker Danone, have recently said they plan to pare back the number of varieties available in their product lines.

The ice cream plant at Truro came to Agropur in 2017, when it bought Scotsburn Co-operative Services — a deal which also included a frozen desserts plant at Lachute, Que. Agropur closed the Lachute plant in 2020 and shifted that site’s work to its other facilities. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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In the wake of the Nov. 14-16 storm, with trucks unable to reach farms, the B.C. Milk Marketing Board on Nov. 16 asked that affected dairy farmers dispose of raw milk into their manure pits, in line with their usual pickup schedules — a request which still stands for some.

As of Monday, pickups continue as usual for dairy producers on Vancouver Island with “limited disruption” — as well as for producers in the Creston and Kootenays regions, whose product can be trucked to Alberta for processing, the board said in a notice to farmers.

Normal pickup has also resumed for dairy farmers in the B.C. Interior — but with a few exceptions who’ve been informed to dispose of their milk. Organic producers in that region will also have to continue disposal “until further notice.”

At Chilliwack and in the Agassiz region east of the Woodside mudslide, “most” producers are back on their normal schedules for pickup “although there may be delays,” the board said Monday.

If pickups don’t occur, farmers in those regions are still asked to dump their milk every other day at intervals corresponding to their “normal” pickup schedules, just prior to the milking after their “normal” pickup timing. Farmers running out of manure storage are asked to contact the B.C. Milk transport department.

In the Prince George, Bulkley Valley and Smithers areas, milk still will not be picked up until further notice, the board said — with a few exceptions who can expect pickups “based on limited resources,” given the limited roads available to enter the Lower Mainland for milk delivery, and limited access to Alberta.

Many dairy farms at Abbotsford, in the Sumas Prairie area, have been subject to a boil water advisory since Thursday, meaning “we cannot pickup your milk until after the… advisory is lifted,” the board said.

Once the advisory is lifted, farmers in that area are asked to dispose of all milk in their bulk tanks, “immediately” clean and sanitize those tanks using potable water, and then start filling again before pickups can resume. Then, pickups will still be “determined by accessibility” to the farms.

That said, the board added Monday that in consultation with the provincial agriculture ministry, the use of home test kits to check water potability — specifically, to test for E. coli and coliform — will be accepted.

“It is a good option to have, especially for farms on the boundary of the boil water advisory area map,” the board said Monday.

Also, in any cases where a dairy farm was flooded and the farmers are returning to the property, “make sure you are co-ordinating with your equipment dealers,” the board said, as the provincial ag ministry “will need the sign-off from your equipment dealers before they will approve the shipment of milk again.”

‘Combination of problems’

The effects of the storm have also been felt at the processing level. Dairy co-operative Agropur, in a statement Monday, said it’s “working all-out to maintain operations” at its Burnaby and Victoria processing plants.

Agropur said it’s “coping with a combination of problems with raw milk supply, the availability of refrigerated transport equipment, and of course the state of the roads,” but “overall production and delivery levels of high-volume products have been maintained, with the support of the production team at our Edmonton plant.”

“Our teams are fully committed to maintaining operations, meeting the demand and finding ongoing solutions to get our products to the shelves at all retailers and institutional customers,” Agropur CEO Emile Cordeau said in the company’s statement.

In a separate notice last Wednesday, the milk marketing board also warned that while some farmers may “want to provide aid to the public and help their community during the current crisis and may be tempted to distribute raw unpasteurized milk directly to the public,” producers who do so are at risk of having their production licenses cancelled or suspended.

Directly distributing raw unpasteurized milk “may compromise safe consumption and the standard of high-quality milk for the industry, while adding other implications,” the board said.

Also, in a separate notice Friday, the board said it “understand(s) the challenge of the unknown many producers are feeling while we attempt to recover” and truckers and board staff “are working at all hours to get your milk picked up, but we cannot yet feasibly pickup all farms due to flooding, roadways, and resource constraints.”

For that reason, the board said, “we cannot tolerate any abuse towards any staff of the board or our transporters and ask that all producers remain respectful in all communications.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The Quebec company announced Monday it would sell its Quebec bulk milk hauling business to unnamed “companies whose core business is transporting liquid food products,” and would also halt its milk transport work in Nova Scotia.

But Agropur, in its release Monday, emphasized it “is continuing its milk transport operations in New Brunswick.”

The Quebec sale is expected to affect about nine per cent of the milk produced by Agropur members in that province, and to eliminate up to 11 jobs “upon closing of the transaction.” The company didn’t give an expected closing date.

Another 75 Quebec jobs, meanwhile, will be transferred to the unnamed “acquirers.” The deal also includes the affected bulk milk transport assets.

In Nova Scotia, meanwhile, Agropur plans to discontinue its farm pickup operations as of June 30, eliminating 34 jobs.

Effective July 1, Dairy Farmers of Nova Scotia (DFNS) said it has “designated new agents” to pick up milk from member farms.

DFNS, in an April 15 notice, named those milk transport agents as Fisher Transport Ltd. and Burghardt Transport Ltd., which it described as “well-established Nova Scotian transport companies with recognized expertise in milk hauling.”

“To streamline its business model and focus on its most strategic assets, Agropur is withdrawing from milk hauling in those two provinces,” Agropur CEO Emile Cordeau said in Monday’s release.

“I would like to thank all employees in this sector affected by this decision. They have been and will be until the conclusion of the transactions, important standard-bearers of the co-operative on the roads and with dairy farmers in these two provinces.”

DFNS chairman Gerrit Damsteegt said the organization thanks Agropur “for their excellent service over the years and for their co-operation in the transition. We will work hard to make sure the changeover goes smoothly for Nova Scotia dairy farmers.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The Quebec-based co-operative announced Tuesday it will close its Winnipeg fluid milk plant effective Sept. 24 — affecting 48 jobs — and transfer that work to plants at Edmonton, Victoria and Burnaby.

“Unfortunately, the level of investment required to maintain the plant’s competitiveness in the coming years was becoming too high,” Agropur CEO Emile Cordeau said in a release.

“We are making this strategic decision to optimize our consumer milk network in Western Canada. This will help simplify our business model and ensure our competitiveness.”

The Winnipeg, Edmonton and Burnaby plants all came to Agropur in a 2014 deal to buy Sobeys’ former Canada Safeway milk processing facilities, following Sobeys’ takeover of Canada Safeway’s stores and operations in Western Canada in 2013.

The deal to buy the plants included a supply agreement to produce milk for the retailer’s Lucerne brand under license. An Agropur representative wasn’t immediately available Tuesday to say how the Winnipeg plant’s closure will affect the Lucerne fluid milk supply chain.

Dairy Farmers of Manitoba general manager Brent Achtemichuk said via email the organization considers the plant closure “a loss for our province” but understands Agropur “had to make a business decision to consolidate operations in Western Canada.”

All dairy farmers in Western Canada share revenue collected from processing plants in the region, he said, which in turn “helps to mitigate the impact of a plant closure.”

Manitoba’s dairy farmers have enough processing capacity for milk produced in the province at this time, but “we continue to encourage processors to invest in our province,” he said.

As of last December, Manitoba’s 259 dairy farms milk about 47,000 cows in all, producing 409 million litres in the 2019-20 dairy year, supplying the Agropur facility and 10 other Manitoba processing plants.

Agropur said Tuesday it’s “aware of the impact this decision will have” and affected employees “will be able to take advantage of available programs, including employment opportunities at other Agropur sites, severance packages, and the employee and family assistance program.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The deal, as announced Thursday, will include Agropur’s plants at Granby, Que. and Delta, B.C. plus the operations at a distribution centre it leases at Longueuil, Que. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

Agropur’s Canadian yogurt business, operating under the name Ultima Foods, includes the Iogo and Iogo Nano yogurt brands, as well as the Olympic brand of yogurt, sour cream and kefir. Lactalis’ current Canadian yogurt roster includes the Astro, Siggi’s and Stonyfield brands.

Yogurt today accounts for about two per cent of Agropur’s milk processing volume and three per cent of its sales, the co-operative said.

“Current market conditions, increasingly aggressive competition and our desire to streamline our business model have prompted us to focus on our most strategic lines of business,” Agropur president Roger Massicotte said in a release.

The yogurt sale, he said, is meant to allow Agropur “to pursue our growth strategy and concentrate our investments.”

“We are very proud of all we have accomplished with Iogo and Olympic, two brands that have played an important role in growing the yogurt category in Canada,”Agropur CEO Emile Cordeau said in the same release.

“However, Agropur’s decision to focus its efforts on its strategic segments means we must streamline our operations. We thank the dedicated employees whose tireless efforts have built Iogo and Olympic into brands consumers trust.”

The co-operative’s yogurt business includes about 450 employees, who will join Lactalis.

The Ultima yogurt business started in 1993 as a joint venture between Agropur and Agrifoods International Co-operative. The j.v. went on to buy B.C. yogurt processor Olympic Dairy in 2004 and introduce Iogo as a new Canadian brand in 2014. Agrifoods International sold its stake to Agropur in 2017.

The deal with Lactalis is subject to the usual conditions — including regulatory approval from the federal Competition Bureau.

The deal “will reinforce Lactalis Canada’s position in the dairy category and will help enable key customer partners in both the retail and foodservice channels (to) meet the growing consumer demand for yogurt products,” Lactalis Canada CEO Mark Taylor said in a separate release.

The company, he said, “is confident that this transaction will positively support dairy farmers, retailers, consumers” and the affected plants’ home communities.

Lactalis, which took over Parmalat in 2011, today operates 17 Canadian plants in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and Manitoba. Among recent acquisitions, it set up a deal earlier this fall to buy several cheese businesses from Kraft Heinz, among them its grated cheese business in Canada. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Longueuil, Que.-based Agropur announced Thursday it will eliminate 60 positions and temporarily lay off another 200 employees, all from its Canadian operations.

In the “unprecedented context” of COVID-19, Agropur said in a release, its “priority is to maintain its dairy manufacturing and distribution operations, which constitute an essential public service.”

The layoffs affect employees “not assigned to essential operational duties,” the company said.

“These are difficult decisions to make but they are necessary in order to maintain the sustainability of our business,” Agropur CEO Emile Cordeau said in Thursday’s release. “Our goal is to bring the temporarily laid-off employees back to work as soon as we can resume the normal course of business.”

The staff cuts and layoffs announced Thursday follow a round of cuts in November that affected 125 Agropur employees, in what it described at the time as an “organizational review to increase the profitability of its Canadian operations.”

The co-operative — which has over 3,000 farmer members, and whose dairy brands include Lucerne, Natrel, Iogo, Olympic and Quebon — booked net earnings of $40.18 million on record sales of $7.255 billion in 2019, down from $67.69 million on $6.714 billion in sales the previous year.

While Agropur’s U.S. operations were supportive to net earnings as “the relationship between the cheese price and the cost of milk improved” in 2019, its Canadian operations showed decreased earnings due to “the competitive environment and operational issues.”

Agropur said Thursday it “moved quickly in the early days” of the pandemic to set up employee health and safety measures and “a business continuity plan to ensure it can continue delivering high-quality dairy products to its customers and consumers.”

Instructions are in place and have been “toughened” for staff regarding travel restrictions and telework as well as hygiene, disinfection, mandatory reporting of illness and access control at all sites for all employees, suppliers and visitors, the company said. –– Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Agropur on Friday announced a voluntary recall of certain bagged and cartoned milks made at its Ottawa processing plant and sold under the Sealtest and L’ecole c’est nourrissant brands, after an internal check found “sanitizer residues.”

The products affected, as of Jan. 27, are listed below.

The co-operative, one of the 20 biggest dairy processors in the world, said it announced the recall of the products in the wake of an investigation after “one reported complaint of discomfort associated with the consumption of a product.”

Agropur said it has asked all of its clients to pull the specific products from their shelves and inventory and has contacted the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which is overseeing the voluntary recall.

CFIA on Friday advised Quebec and Ontario consumers to see if they have the recalled products in their homes, and to either throw out the recalled products or return them to the stores where they were bought.

Food contaminated with sanitizer residue may not look or smell spoiled and “should not be consumed,” CFIA said, adding that consuming the affected product may cause symptoms such as nausea, upset stomach or vomiting.

No other products, formats, brands or “best before” dates are affected other than those listed below, Agropur said.

The Sealtest brand, which originated in the U.S. in the 1940s, is today owned by Unilever and used by Agropur in Canada under license on milk, cream, sour cream, cottage cheese and lemonade products. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

Correction from source, Jan. 27 — The article and table below have been updated with corrected information from CFIA.

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Canada’s biggest dairy co-operative had announced in September last year it would close the former Fromagerie Damafro plant at Saint-Damase, Que. in April this year, but delayed those plans pending talks with the Producteurs de lait de chevre du Quebec.

The company, in a release Monday, said it has “concluded the talks begun a year ago” with the goat producer group. Agropur said a “good-faith effort was made to find a solution but none can be implemented.”

Agropur said Monday it will accept goats’ milk at the plant until the end of December as agreed with the PLCQ, but now plans to shut the plant permanently in March 2020.

Details of talks with the PLCQ weren’t mentioned in Monday’s release. Agropur said a “confidentiality agreement signed by both parties prevents them from publicly disclosing the options that were discussed.”

However, PLCQ president Christian Dube was quoted Wednesday by La Terre de chez nous, the ag news arm of Quebec’s Union des producteurs agricoles (UPA), as saying the producer group didn’t know much about what alternatives the company was considering.

Dube, for one, told La Terre he has now begun to cancel expansion plans at his farm, not far from the St-Damase plant, and that PLCQ members would now see if they could arrange contracts to supply goat dairy processors elsewhere.

Agropur bought Fromagerie Damafro in 2013 for an undisclosed sum from the Bonnet family of cheesemakers, who came to Quebec from the Brie region of France. Damafro had been billed as a leading processor of goats’ milk in both Quebec and Canada since 2005.

In 2018, however, Agropur said “major investments” would be needed to keep the St-Damase plant open. It also cited “inability to reach a long-term agreement with the plant’s employees” as well as “the need to honour commitments to customers.”

Mario Maisonneuve, president of the plant’s TUAC (Travailleurs et Travailleuses unis de l’alimentation et du commerce) Local 1991-P, said in 2018 there was “no doubt” Agropur favoured closing the St-Damase plant before bargaining had even begun. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Agropur Co-operative announced Friday it plans to close the former Les Aliments Lebel plant at Lachute, Que., just northwest of Montreal, in August 2020 and transfer the plant’s operations to other Agropur sites.

The co-op said the plant closure, which is expected to affect 177 employees, is meant to allow Agropur to “optimize its ice cream manufacturing operations,” as it “needs to make the requisite efforts in a highly competitive market.”

The Lachute plant, which makes ice cream and frozen novelties, was run by Les Aliments Lebel until 2015, when that company was taken over by Truro, N.S.-based Scotsburn Co-operative Services. The Lachute plant at the time was Quebec’s largest for making ice cream and frozen desserts.

Agropur in turn bought Scotsburn in early 2017, including its plants at Truro and Lachute and the Scotsburn brand name. That deal was announced in 2016 but was delayed pending approval from the federal Competition Bureau.

After closing that deal, Agropur “made a strategic decision to concentrate its ice cream manufacturing operations at two other Canadian facilities” in Truro and Edmonton, the co-operative said Friday.

Longueuil, Que.-based Agropur said Friday it’s “aware of the impact this decision will have.”

Affected employees, the company said, will be able to take advantage of available programs, such as severance packages employment opportunities at other Agropur sites, and an assistance program for workers and their families. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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