They’ve promised to try to get along better but processors and dairy producers look set to get into another scrap over the amount of milk in a dairy product.
Saputo and Kraft Canada went to court when Ottawa imposed new compositional standards for cheese, which required greater use of milk, in 2008. In February, the Federal Court of Appeal upheld federal cheese regulations. Processors have until mid-May to launch an appeal to the Supreme Court.
Now the Dairy Farmers of Canada is asking Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz to impose yogurt compositional standards just as it did for cheese in 2008. Don Jarvis, president of Dairy Processors Association of Canada, said pursuing yogurt standards would undermine DFC’s stated intention of trying to foster better relations with the companies that make their milk into cheese and other foods.
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Outgoing DFC president Jacques Laforge has been pushing his organization to work co-operatively with processors to address issues such as compositional standards for dairy products, over production of skim milk powder, and pricing policies which make dairy products costly compared to rival products.
Jarvis said the demand for new yogurt composition standards imperils those discussions, will result in price increases, and could also become as issue in Canada- Europe free trade agreement negotiations. The dairy industry is also facing growing criticism over the price of milk, cheese, yogurt and other products from health and anti-poverty groups.
But a spokeswoman for Dairy Farmers of Canada praised the Federal Court’s ruling on compositional standards, which describe basic requirements so food products such as cheese have uniform composition and meet consumers’ expectations.
The court noted the compositional standards “increase consumer confidence and ensure fair and efficient market competition between industrial players, while increasing available markets,” said Therese Beaulieu.
The presence of the standards hasn’t prevented the processors from introducing several new cheeses in the last couple of years, she added.
Saputo and Kraft had argued that by requiring the use of more milk in cheese, the government has raised farmer returns at the expense of the dairy processors.
