by SUSAN MANN
Food retailing giant Loblaw Companies Limited’s decision to switch organic milk suppliers came with “no firm answer” as to why, says a spokesperson for its former supplier, Ontario farmer-owned co-operative Organic Meadow.
“We’re disappointed about the milk proposition however they (Loblaw) continue to support us in a large way with some new news that our kefir (a cultured milk drink) is now available nationally across the country,” says Michelle Schmidt. Schmidt says the decision was a surprise. Co-op members were told about it at their annual meeting in August.
The switch took effect Oct. 14 when the Loblaw began stocking organic milk made by Neilson Dairy, which is owned by Saputo Inc. Sandy Vassiadis, corporate communications director for Saputo, couldn’t be reached for comment.
A woman who answered Loblaw’s PR department’s telephone said the company would not provide comment over the phone. A spokesperson could not be reached via email.
Loblaw was Organic Meadow’s number one customer for its milk and milk is the co-op’s top product line.
Schmidt says the discontinuation “has posed quite a challenge to our business” and to the co-op’s 100 farmer members (of those more than 60 are dairy farmers; there are also egg and grain farmer members).
“There’s a lot of pride that comes from the fact our farmers can go into the store and see the fruits of their labour on store shelves,” she says. “More than dollars and cents, it’s a huge impact to their pride.”
Organic Meadow built a new facility in 2009 in Guelph and “when you don’t have your milk available at such a strong retail partner it does have an impact on our ability to effectively and efficiently utilize that plant,” she adds. The co-op is sorting out how it will use the plant efficiently now that “things have changed.”
Loblaw has “massive reach,” she notes. Without milk products in Loblaw stores, the farmer co-op faces a challenge of “being able to make our products accessible to all of our loyal customers who love it and want it.” She adds the sales team is actively working on finding new customers and selling more milk to other grocers.
The co-op’s milk is still available at other grocery retailers, including Longos, Metro, Whole Foods and several independent health food stores.
And it’s not all bad news for Organic Meadow. Schmidt says along with offering Organic Meadow’s kefir nationally Loblaw is also adding the co-op’s ice cream and frozen vegetables to its product lineup by the end of the year. As well, Loblaw still carries Organic Meadow’s other products, such as cheese, yogurt, butter, cottage cheese and sour cream.
Schmidt says there has been an outpouring of support from Organic Meadow’s customers. According to an Organic Meadow survey done in May of 500-plus customers, more than 60 per cent said they would be willing to switch supermarkets “to find our milk” if Organic Meadow milk wasn’t available in their regular store.
Shelly Juurlink, Organic Meadow spokesperson, says according to a newsletter they get from Dairy Farmers of Ontario there are 77 organic dairy farmers in the province. The total organic production in September, the most recent number, was 2,159,747 litres. The utilization for September was 97.5 per cent. That means 97.5 per cent of the organic milk that was produced was used to make organic products.
Juurlink says utilization has been ranging from 85 to 97.5 per cent this year, depending on what processors ask for in any given month. BF
Comments
I suppose Loblaws can do what they want however shame on them anyway! Sobeys (Schomberg and Caledon East) has also greatly reduced its Organic Meadows line in favour of a Quebec-based product. I would think they'd welcome queries on their store's policies so doubly shame on them for not responding to requests for comments. Funny way to go about doing business; without us, they are nothing. Thanks for your reporting.
Retailers stock what sells. Over the past decade Organic Meadows has been viewed by many as a comedy of errors. Since 2000 they have had 5 general mangers, with so much turnover at the top its hard to build a solid vision. Every one of these managers except for one who was a former dairy farmer were all corporate suits and if memory serves me right they were all unemployed at the time they were hired. ( you can tell they were all unemployed because usually their resumes show their last job as being a consultant after leaving their last paying gig before being hired by OM) If you want to be successful you hire some one away from a good job not from the un-employement line, there is usually a reason there job seeking at this level. Its the co-ops board of directors that should really be the ones answering to their members for their reckless oversight and poor miss management of the coops business. They have proven that they simply are not capable of managing the coop. To the best of my knowledge this coop has never turned a profit and after 25 years if you can't keep your head above water your bound to sink and sinking is what i see them doing right now. If they cant get their milk into Loblaws and Sobeys and if Harmony Organic Milk keeps dominating the independent retailers then were does Organic Meadows fit in ? i think there Board of directors and the membership better ask them self's that question. The only way i can see them surviving is if they are bought out by some one like Agropur who has deep pockets and can help to utilize their processing plant to its fullest capacity, since it is not currently being utilized to its full potential.
At the end of the day if you can't make money and you can't doing some thing for your members that isn't already available else where then what is your purpose as a coop ? or as a business ? I would think there must be some people around that board table who must be having second thoughts about wanting to run for reelection the next time around....
Sean McGivern
They should hire an economist for there next general manager. Apparently they are the smartest people and know everything.
Its walking a tightrope with producing Organic milk and always will be.One point the processors/retailers are crying for more, so the 25% premium looks pretty good to Dairy farmers making the switch and the organic milk production goes up.Then there is too much milk and the first thing to drop is the 25% premium,as a small dairy operator l contemplated the move to organic for years but it just was not stable.
l have no doubt that stability has something to do with Loblaws decision
More so it goes to show that not every thing in supply managed production is a given . Should reaaly be taken as changes are likely needed even to the holy grail of SM .
It is simple...Loblaws saved a lot of money by moving all their organic milk to Saputo. The premium for small suppliers and the distributors who get the product to stores make it very difficult to compete. The problem is our food system which is dominated by one retailer.
Sean's memory is not correct, not all the General Managers were out of work when they were hired. But the, how would a former part time employee know?
Also, the co-op' subsidiary was profitable for at least five years and the co-op paid some nice dividends.
Stiik to the facts Sean
I was never a part time employee, my employment there was always full time, up until the day i resigned.
Now lets deal with the real issues that you seem to lack understanding on.
There is a serious underlying issue when you go through this many GM's and interim GM, in a stretch of 12 years and every one of them was let go or only there until a replacement could be found in the case of the 2 interim GM's.
Richard Graham GM
John Meek INT GM
Terry Ackerman GM
Steve Cavell GM
Ted Zettle INT GM
Don Rees Current GM
These gentleman couldn't have all been the problem over the past 12 years. When you have this much turn over at the highest level of a company, then one would have to think that either the business model isn't realistic or the expectations the board has for its GM aren't realistic or they have simply hired the wrong person for the job every single time and there for maybe its the board of directors that isn't competent.It has to be either one of those things or all of those things you decide.
But clearly the current model isn't working. I also take real annoyance to your comments that little distributors can't compete, that is just udder BS, look at how successful Harmony Organic Milk Co. is they are in every independent retailer and every mid range retailer in the province that i have ever been into.
If Loblaws has saved lots of money from doing this as you have accused them of, then good for them its called fiscal responsibility that is what business's who are created to earn a profit do and have always done, its not some new funky business model, however it might seem strange to a Coop that isn't making money.
You should be blaming miss management for a lack of success, not your customers. If i was member of this coop i would be beyond angry, I would be so up set and annoyed at how poorly the farmer elected board of directed has allowed this business to be managed, it seems their is no accountability and the systemic problems that seem to plague this coop are not being dealt with in a manner that would reassure any one. Clearly there are some major systemic issues here. OM coop choose not to focus on the smaller retailers and they went after the big accounts and they were bumped, it happens all the time in business, its not right or wrong that's just business. Any business knows its not a safe play to have all your eggs in one basket, so that is why a company like Harmony likely decided to go after the small and mid range customers so their business model was diverse and not reliant on one big customer for the loins share of their revenues.
As for the nice dividends you speak of, i would love to know what you consider to be a nice rate of return on your investment.
Also if the coop was as highly profitable as you claim for a period of 5 years and i would love to know when those 5 years were, then why would they have had to take on an investor as they did and pay lending rates way beyond what any bank would have charged if the business model was so solid ? so solid as you claim that you received dividends, please do tell me this ????
I am sure you will have some personal attack on me now to combat my reply to your absurd comments and miss information.
At the end of the day most big business's don't buy from one company or another just because their darn nice guys and gals they deal with them for the financial value they bring to the table, is that unfair ? maybe, is it hard to compete sure it is, is it impossible to compete is a free market, no and we know this because we can see other highly successful companies doing so.
But as i have said far to many times all ready, What is so special about Organic Meadow milk ? that would make me want to buy it over Neilsons or Harmony or Wholefoods 365 ??? nothing is special about it, and it all comes from the same farms because of the pool system we have here in Ontario.
So when and if Organic Meadow every realizes that there milk is just generic organic milk nothing special about it, and that it offers no more or no less value to the consumer then the other brands do then its likely they will continue to find their situation no different and no better and no more profitable.
Sean McGivern
As posters to this forum perhaps we should know who the "Reviwers" are .It seems that there are a couple of Posters can write whatever they want and always be seen. They express their negative views about businesses/supply management (now marriage) at every opportunity.Mr McGivern and Mr Thompson should us some background of his success businesses.
G Kimble
p.s. i have also signed my postings
Reality speaks for itself - it's dumb to go into a business where there is only one buyer for what you produce. It's equally dumb to go into a business which is dependent on legislation for its existence. It's also equally as dumb to not know when to cut your losses, or appear to not even understand the concept in the first place, especially when it comes to poisoned workplaces and/or the poisoned family dynamics which could easily ruin not just two generations, but three.
As for my views on one matter, I would refer readers to Proverbs 21:19, and even Proverbs 21:9, both of which loosely say - "It's better for a man to live on the corner of a roof top (or in a desert) than dwell in a house with an angry and contentious woman."
While many who post on this site would appear to subscribe to the fantasy that somehow things will always work out if we all sit around the campfire, hold hands, and sing folk songs, the reality of life is the exact opposite.
We, in agriculture, have deluded ourselves for far-too long by the fantasy that we are somehow either exempt from, or immune to, reality. That fantasy ended earlier this year when Ontario Pork voted, 68-13, to urge government to place trade ahead of protectionism. The fantasy was further dashed when, earlier this week at the OFA annual convention, a delegate from the pork industry asked the candidates for OFA president a pointed question about supply management, and received, naturally, waffling answers in response. The issue, and the reality behind it, are not going away, no matter how many campfires we have, and no matter how loudly we sing our songs.
Finally, a well-known agricultural law practitioner told me recently, as we were reviewing family law matters for a mutual client, that the fastest growing area of law was agricultural law, especially family law as it affects farmers.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
Sometimes things just make sense...if you stop long enough to think about it.
This is one of those times and you have expressed it accurately Mr. Thompson.
Equally dumb to put the health of a industry in the hands of a foreign country.
You talk about being dumb having only one buyer for your produce yet that is almost exactly what Ontario Pork have done for years and then when COOL comes along and things start to tank they complain, whine and plead for this Government to save them by trading off Supply management!
Canada has never came close over the years to filling its Ractopamine-free Pork and Hormone-free Beef export quota's into the EU..why?..because we had good old USA to dump that all on.Wait till they find out that those restrictions on our Pork and Beef are still in place with this CETA deal!
The problem in the pork industry is that we went from large 50 sow farrow to finish operations in the 70'S to 500 and 1500 farrow to finish operations in the 80"s forward till today. The farmers have concentrated the pork industry them self's. Because farmers were told to get big or get out and by getting big they have pushed out the smaller producers. So let's not blame the US for our low hog prices there industry did exactly the same thing as ours did here. I honestly don't believe there is any viable option for a mid size farmer to be able to farm full time here in Ontario. I think you either need to be small scale specialty focused and have another source of income to off set low periods or you need to be farming over 2,000 acres of prime land so you can't afford to farm full time. I have lots of friends still in the mid size range in the beef back grounding and they can not make a fair living running 300 to 500 stockers. I also have friends raising 25 - 50 beef cows direct marketing all of their beef and making a really good full time living, so i think its about find what works for each farmer.
Sean McGivern
That is true Sean, but it really depends on how much debt you have and whether your farm income can service that debt. In the next 15 to 20 years there will be a lot of farms changing hands as my generation leaves the farm. Will my son be able to buy the farm , buy out his siblings?
I think the farm groups as well as the federal and provincial governments and the farmers themselves have to take a long hard look at what we want the farming community to look like in the future and how are going to get there. The federal government is betting on opening up trade, that means farmers have to have a pretty sharp pencil to compete on the world commodity market. ( The ups and downs) I am not sure you would be putting cattle on 2000 ac. of prime land in Ontario, I sure wouldn't. Cow/calf is land based, that is one of the reasons we are seeing the cow herd disappear here in Ontario. With a shrinking cow herd in North America not grazing stockers is going to work for the next generation when they buy the land from dad and have to service that debt.
Kim Sytsma
Putting the the health of an industry "in the hands of a foreign country" (whatever that means) is rocket-scientist smart when compared to putting the health of an industry in the hands of greedy, quota-owning farmers who think it's wonderful that they can simultaneously screw consumers and other farmers.
I trust the market to represent my best interests - I have no trust that quota-owning farmers have any sense of the concept at all.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
Yes, but you're trusting the market in another Country, that is what the Beef and Pork people have done for years looking south of the border, with mixed results.Supply management looks after a Canadian market, there is not a Canadian industry,Agricultural based or otherwise that does not have a cost of production base and passes that on to consumers, if they didn't they would not be in business for long.
As far as SM screwing other farmers,it should be an embarrassment to Pork and Beef producers in this country to see the piddly numbers that we have exported to the EU over the years and the lost revenues for not filling those Tariff-free markets.They have screwed themselves!
There are so many economic fallacies and logic contradictions in your posting, that it's hard to know where to start counting them.
Since basic economic principles dictate that the market is to be trusted, it is a fallacy for Canadian farmers to think that there are distinct, and separate, Canadian and US markets, and that the US market somehow can't be trusted - the truth is that it is one big market which is to always be trusted, because the alternative, a quota-owning mafia, can't be trusted at all.
To look at it another way, the Chicago futures markets are, by definition, and in operation, a lot-more trustworthy, and whole lot more transparent, and a whole-lot more beneficial to the economy and to society, than 15,000 quota-owning Canadian farmers.
It is, therefore, also a fallacy to claim that supply management "looks after" a Canadian market, because the truth is that the only thing supply management "looks after" is quota-owning famers. And even if the case could be made that supply management does "look after" anything but quota-owning farmers, it does so quite-poorly because it:
(A) forces consumers to cross the border into the US,
(B) forces some milk buyers to pay 87% more for milk than others,
(C) forces a no-growth situation on all sectors of the dairy industry, right from the farm gate to the retail store - the result being a high-cost, low growth, and woefully-inept sector of the economy.
(D) very-much pits farmers against one another.
If beef and pork farmers, like dairy farmers, sold only to the Canadian market, they too, would have long-since shrivelled into a high-cost, small volume, no export sector exactly like what our dairy industry has become under supply management.
Farmers still don't seem to even want to get the point that the market doesn't care about anyone's cost of production, nor should it. The market is the market, period, if you're willing to produce something for what the market is prepared to pay for it, that's the only thing that matters. The idea of passing a cost of production on to consumers doesn't exist anywhere except in the minds of farmers - it's quaint, it's business heresy, it's just plain dumb, as well as horribly patronizing and dismissive to consumers, yet farmers persist in believing it.
In addition, it's counter-intuitive to believe that trusting markets outside one's borders is bad because basic economic principles dictate that market security, and incomes received, are both enhanced whenever the size of a market increases. Yet, Canadian farmers believe, quite-incorrectly, that the smaller the market, the better.
I'm sorry, but everything in your posting is so-wrong, and so-convoluted, it's almost embarassing to read it - in addition, to most people trying to make a living as a non-supply managed farmer, it is infuriating and condescending, and a perfect example of how, and why, supply management is not well-liked, and will not be missed.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
Ahhh yes, the same Chicago future Market that was virtually frozen during the recent US debt crisis, not a great example of trustworthiness!
The cost of production is not just for farmers but what you should have said is if you are willing to produce something "at a loss" for what the market is willing to pay for it...now that certainly pertains to farmers of the Beef and Pork variety over the past few years.
Not sure how you can rant about no growth in Dairy and then blame them for gobbling up farms and raising land values so much ? is that not growth ?
You have said often enough that this Countries Politians will some day cast aside Supply management but yet you somehow believe in a foreign Country's Government when it comes to Market security? COOL and the US are another very poor example of that.
I'm not sure where you got your information to support the belief that the Chicago markets, or even the New York markets, were "virtually frozen" in any so-called debt-crisis, but it wasn't from any reliable, or reputable, source.
The point is that about the only time I've ever seen the Chicago market "freeze" was when the US placed a trade embargo against Russia about 35 years ago, causing about a three-day limit down move - not a fun experience for grain growers.
And when it comes to frozen markets, nothing is more frozen than dairy quota, except possibly for laying hen quota for the past six months.
In addition, dairy farmers just don't seem to understand, or even want to understand, that COOL has everything to do with our obtuseness about supply management.
Finally, the growth you tout in dairying, isn't growth in dairying, but using windfall profits from 200% tariff barriers to "cannibalize" and/or dominate the land-buying market at the expense of non-supply managed farmers - and exactly the reason why supply management is widely-detested in the farm community (except by old coots with land to sell)
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
You don't have to call it a freeze if you don't want to but when USDA suspended all crop and Livestock reports for 16 days during the Debt shutdown crisis Analysts and traders in Chicago likened it to "People are flying blindly",everybody is guessing more"
"For the first time in 40 years, farmers, exporters, processors and traders will have to live without a key monthly crop report that they rely on to forecast market direction because of the U.S. government shutdown"
That was from Reuters,l'm sure you have heard of them!
It would seem that you have a double standard happening in your logic . To go to the Good Book as you have really makes me think you are very loose with your thinking in that you seem to think it is o.k. for a man to treat a woman with no respect and as a creature below himself .
Why do you not look up what it says about how a man should treat a woman or his wife and post it here .
Not from the bible but words that more men should live by , “Women were created from the rib of man to be beside him, not from his head to top him, nor from his feet to be trampled by him, but from under his arm to be protected by him, near to his heart to be loved by him.”
Many times it can be that the man is the poison in a relationship/marriage or even in the work place . To error is human , to blame some one else is even more human .
About a decade ago, one of my farm clients cheated on his his wife, and didn't hide what he was doing. She wasn't happy. Even worse was that both her husband and the Minister of their church (a church attended by many CFFO members) made the phenomenally-stupid mistake of quoting scriptures to try to persuade her to forgive her husband.
One day while at their farm, I suggested she needed to drop-kick her husband, the Minister, and even the church itself, and asked her if she had a Bible - dumb question since I could see a well-used Bible on the table, and suggested that if her husband, the Minister, or anybody for that matter, EVER again suggested that she knuckle under, to review those two references.
She read these two passages on the spot, and I suggested to her that if those adages apply to men leaving women, they equally apply to women leaving men.
She, and her four young children, left the farm, and the marriage, about a week later, and has been happily re-married for about three years to someone who doesn't go to that church, or use the Bible to try to control her. And, to my knowledge, neither her ex-husband nor the Minister of his church, believe, to this day, that they did anything wrong, or even could have done anything wrong.
The point is that I use these particular passages to counter all those who, like the ex-husband and the Minister of his church, believe it is appropriate to hide behind the Bible to try to control others, that even the Bible advises that sometimes you just have to stand up for yourself, and do what needs to be done.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
AHH Yes the old bait and switch and don't shoot the messenger bit .
If you truely were meaning to represent both sides you would have from the start .
I will say the fact that you can't wait to beat down any one or any group but cry fowl when some one takes you to task . Why is it that you felt the need to drag the CFFO and a church through the mud in your posting ? What satisfaction has that given you ? You very well could have made your piont with out .
I'm entitled to cast aspersions on anyone, and any organization, which I believe follows a double-standard. The CFFO purports to adhere to Christian principles, yet because of its unflinching support of supply management, it turns a blind-eye to the plight of Canada's poor consumers - thereby making it one of the most disgracefully un-Christian organizations any of us will ever encounter.
This particular Minister was unflinching in his belief that this lady should apologize to her husband for not being a good-enough wife - thereby making it a no-brainer for me to conclude that his Christianity was entirely chauvinistic in nature, and to advise her to get as far away from that Minister, and even that church, as she possibly could - she did.
Therefore, I'm perfectly entitled to shoot the messenger, when it's the messenger who is the problem.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
does Mr Thompson mean we can all "shoot the messenger, when it's the messenger Mr Thompson, is the problem" poster on this forum
gk
Please make every effort to keep local in the product dynamic.
this is a strong #3 on the top ten reasons to buy Organic Meadow products behind only quality and organic.
I did buy Kefir from Zehrs in Guelph ON but was surprised to see that it was produced in Manitoba ?? and then there is the frozen veggies from USA ?? nothing local about those.
Norm Rudy
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