The province on May 29 announced the deadlines for grain and oilseed producers to submit their completed RMP applications and make any coverage changes — previously set at May 10 — has now been moved to June 30.

For livestock producers, the deadline to submit applications or request coverage changes, previously extended to April 15 for the 2023 program year, has now also been reset to June 30.

Agricorp, the province’s farm program delivery agency, said May 29 the latest deadline move is meant to “give farmers more time to evaluate their coverage decisions” and more flexibility in making those decisions.

That said, to be eligible for RMP: Grains and Oilseeds, grower customers will still also need to have Production Insurance coverage — the application deadline for which remained May 10.

Ontario’s RMP, set up as a permanent program in 2011, is intended to help farmers manage risks beyond their control, such as fluctuating costs and market prices.

The program is intended as a complement to Production Insurance, which insures against production losses, and AgriStability, a whole-farm ag income stabilization program. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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If individual states can introduce non-tariff trade barriers, “it will change the fundamental dynamic of how we can handle international trade negotiations,” said Stephen Heckbert, executive director of the Canadian Pork Council.

On May 11, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld California’s Proposition 12, which set new minimum space requirements for sows, laying hens and veal calves. It also banned sales of meat or eggs from animals housed in barns that don’t meet those standards, even if the animals were not raised in California.

The American pork industry challenged the law on the grounds that it impermissibly regulated out-of-state farmers. California imports much of its pork from outside the state.

Why it matters: Beyond the direct trade implications of Prop 12, the court case sets a precedent for state power that pork groups worry could hinder the Canadian industry’s ability to navigate U.S. markets.

Canadian producers exported nearly 6.7 million hogs to the U.S. in 2022, with millions shipped as weanlings from Manitoba.

The Manitoba Pork Council is concerned that local producers will not be able to export weanlings to the U.S. if their barns don’t comply with Prop 12.

“This is something that’s not going to be confined just to California,” said general manager Cam Dahl.

Several other states have similar legislation and were awaiting the Supreme Court decision before putting them into effect, he noted.

“We don’t negotiate separate trade agreements with 50 states. We need to be able to have a North American market that’s integrated, allows for the free flow of product and isn’t different in every different state.”

The viability of these state laws must still be explored through an international trade lens. Heckman said the Canadian government will need to speak with American counterparts.

In March 2022, the CPC joined Mexico and the Illinois Pork Producers in filing an argument supporting an appeal against Prop 12. It noted the integrated nature of the North American pork industry.

“California’s extraterritorial regulation of Mexican and Canadian sow farms would thwart those nations’ own considered choices about how to protect animal welfare,” the joint submission said.

The Canadian Pork Council has already had informal discussion with Canadian trade officials.

Heckman said the door is open for the U.S. National Pork Producers Council (NPPC), the organization at the heart of the recent Supreme Court case, to challenge Prop 12 again. He said he was waiting for a full debrief from American producers to clarify their next move.

In a May 11 statement, NPPC president Scott Hays signaled the group’s intent to keep fighting.

“Allowing state overreach will increase prices for consumers and drive small farms out of business, leading to more consolidation,” said Hays. “We are still evaluating the court’s full opinion to understand all the implications.”

Enforcement of Prop 12 standards for sow housing begins July 1.

When Dahl spoke with the Co-operator on May 15, he said he didn’t know how soon Manitoba producers could expect to feel the effects of the law.

Prop 12 changes

Proposition 12 requires that breeding pigs must be able to turn around freely, lie down, stand up and fully extend their limbs. It stipulates that sows must have at least 24 square feet of floor space, about the size of a double bed. Some exceptions are made, such as the five days prior to farrowing and while the sow is nursing.

The current industry standard is 14 to 20 square feet, according to a 2021 report from Dutch banking and financial services company Rabobank.

In Manitoba, producers must follow the National Farm Animal Care Council’s code of practice if they want to send pigs to federally inspected processing plants.

Those codes require any barns built after 2014 to house sows in groups, with individual stalls allowed for 28 days after breeding. Stalls must allow sows to stand without simultaneously touching both sides, lie down without their udders entering adjacent stalls, stand up without touching the top bars and stand without touching both ends of the stall.

In 2014, the NFACC proposed that all barns be transitioned to open sow housing by 2024. In 2020, after a five-year review, the group proposed to push that deadline back to 2029. The board failed to reach a consensus on that proposal, however, and it has been “temporarily set aside pending NFACC undertaking a full review of its governance processes,” the organization’s website states.

About 60 per cent of sows in Manitoba live in group housing, Dahl said, but they may not meet California’s standards.

Next steps

Earlier this spring, at the Manitoba Pork Council’s annual general meeting, representatives of the Iowa Pork Producers Association and the Minnesota Pork Producers Association told local producers that American farms can probably supply California with enough compliant pork. They said more barns will need to be upgraded if other states apply the same standards.

Seaboard Corp., the third-biggest U.S. pig producer, is prepared to supply California customers with “limited supplies of compliant pork” starting July 1, said company spokesperson David Eaheart.

The firm, which runs Seaboard Foods, converted a portion of its farms and plant operations to meet Prop 12 requirements before the Supreme Court’s decision, Eaheart said.

Pork groups argued that enforcing Prop 12 would lead to higher costs for what has typically been an affordable protein.

In 2018, when the issue was put to a ballot vote in California, voters were told the measure would “likely result in an increase in prices for eggs, pork and veal,” according to the election’s official voter information guide.

The summary of the proposition also warned it would lead to a small reduction in the state’s revenue and would increase oversight costs by up to $10 million annually.

Nearly two-thirds of Californians voted for the proposition, state records show. However, the proposition was passed pre-pandemic and before recent inflation spikes, Heckman said.

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The North American Meat Institute, whose members include processors such as Tyson Foods and retailers including Walmart, said enforcing Proposition 12 would hurt producers and consumers by significantly increasing their costs.

It also said the measure, which passed last November with 63 per cent of the vote, was an “overreach” that violated the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause by requiring out-of-state producers to comply with California’s rules or face a sales ban.

“Prop 12 hurts the family on a budget with higher prices for pork, veal and eggs, and unfairly punishes livestock producers outside of California by forcing them to spend millions more just to access California markets,” Meat Institute president Julie Anna Potts said in a statement.

Spokesmen for California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and the state’s Department of Food and Agriculture did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for the state’s Department of Public Health declined to comment.

In its complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court, the Meat Institute is seeking an injunction against the sales ban targeting out-of-state veal and pork.

The group’s more than 700 members also include packers and processors such as Cargill, JBS USA, Smithfield Foods and Wegmans, as well as Chipotle, Target and Amazon.com’s Whole Foods.

Proposition 12, or the Prevention of Cruelty to Farm Animals Act, sets minimum space requirements for calves raised for veal, breeding pigs and egg-laying hens, and bans the sale of raw veal, pork or eggs from animals enclosed in too little space.

Calves must have 43 square feet (four square metres) of floor space by 2020, pigs must have 24 square feet by 2022, and hens must have one square foot by 2020 and be “cage-free” by 2022.

Proponents said the measure would phase out extreme means of confining animals.

Animal rights groups were split. The Humane Society of the United States backed the measure, while People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals opposed it, saying it did not go far enough.

— Reporting for Reuters by Jonathan Stempel in New York.

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The company said Tuesday it expected to have the new brand — Fontaine Family, named for the company’s founding family — available via “most major supermarket banners” by week’s end.

With the new product line, “we want to address consumers directly and help them appreciate the subtle and refined taste of veal, but also raise awareness on the many benefits this lean and nutritious meat provides,” Montpak president Alex Fontaine said in a release.

To “meet our customers’ needs,” he said, the line includes “ready-to-cook products made from fresh meat, preservative-free, gluten-free and containing a minimum of salt. They are quick to cook and have a maximum of five ingredients.”

“All our animals are raised without the use of hormones, in accordance with the highest standards of animal welfare and our milk-fed veal is GMO-free,” Delimax president Fabien Fontaine said in the same release. “We are proud to stand alone in offering this milk-fed veal product.”

Asked via email about the specifics of the new veal line’s non-GMO label claim, the company replied that its packaging notes the livestock used for the new product line are non-GMO-fed.

“We do control our source of feed by growing our own solid feed. This is how we can assure strict controls that differentiate ourselves form other producers of milk-fed veal.”

The company noted it meets Canadian rules to make a non-GMO fed claim, but it has developed its own logo, since “no federal certification logo… exists that we could use.”

The Delimax-Montpak group, which bills itself as “North America’s veal leader,” sources livestock from 105 company-owned farms and affiliates and owns or is affiliated with companies up and down the meat value chain, including Abattoir Saint-Germain, Transport Dofax, processing and distributing arms Montpak and Catelli Bros. and milk replacer manufacturers NRV and Serval.

“We really waited until we had all the right elements in place to ensure the success of the launch: farmland, feed production, livestock and processing plants,” Donald Fontaine, president of the Delimax-Montpak group’s transportation division, said in the same release.

“This allows us to ensure that we have a high level of quality control throughout the production line through all stages of the process.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Delimax-Montpak Group announced Friday it has an agreement in principle to buy St-Hyacinthe-based Ecolait for total consideration of $50 million.

Delimax-Montpak said Friday the deal “will allow the veal sector in the province, and in the rest of Canada, to remain competitive internationally.”

The deal is expected to keep Ecolait’s Quebec veal production and processing operations in business, including seven company-owned farms and a Montreal-area slaughtering and processing plant at La Plaine, employing about 200 people.

The deal will also maintain the company’s supply agreements with almost 70 affiliated farms supplying livestock to the La Plaine plant, Delimax-Montpak said.

In business since 1979, Ecolait filed for federal creditor protection Nov. 2 in the wake of what its trustee, Richter Advisory Group, described as “significant financial difficulties” including losses last year and each year from 2008 through 2014.

The trustee cited Ecolait management as attributing those operating losses to 18 years of contraction in the veal industry and an “unsuccessful” bid to enter the pork business through a subsidiary. Delft Blue, which operated a pork processing plant at Utica, N.Y., has been liquidating its assets since July.

Ecolait’s secured creditors include National Bank, with whom the company has $20.5 million in liabilities, and Farm Credit Canada, owed $4.9 million. In all, the trustee reported $63.6 million owed to secured and unsecured creditors.

Delimax-Montpak, which first approached Ecolait about a deal in late 2016, was considered the “best party in position to make an offer,” given the size of the sale, industry regulations and a “lack of other potential interested parties,” Richter reported.

‘Weakened’

“It had become clear that major changes were needed in our industry segment,” Delimax-Montpak CEO Fabien Fontaine said in Friday’s release.

“In recent years, government cutbacks to farm credit programs, transatlantic trade deals, and the changes requested to our farming practices have severely weakened the financial capacity of Quebec’s veal production and processing companies,” he said.

Specifically, Delimax said, the province’s farm financing agency, la Financiere Agricole du Quebec (FADQ), “slashed” farm credit programs for milk-fed veal and has “severely restricted” its contributions to programs available to large companies.

Also, the company said, Canada’s free trade pact with the European Union allows EU veal producers to export products to Canada “without paying the nearly 30 per cent customs duties to which they were previously subjected.”

EU exporters, Delimax said, “are also not governed by the same rules on the use of certain products” and EU calf producers have “benefited from generous subsidies that have enabled it to enhance its farming infrastructures.”

Delimax-Montpak formed through a separate consolidation in 2015, when the Fontaine family, which owns St-Hyacinthe-based Delimax, bought out the stake of the Buksbaum family in veal processor Montpak International. The Buksbaums, who founded Montpak over 50 years ago, had set up Montpak International with the Fontaines in 1995.

A deal for Ecolait’s assets will boost Delimax-Montpak’s production and processing capacity by nearly 50 per cent, Delimax-Montpak said.

Combined with Ecolait’s operations, Delimax-Montpak said it will own 100 corporate farms, work with almost 270 other farms, operate processing plants in both Canada and the U.S., employ about 1,000 people and book combined revenues of about $425 million. — AGCanada.com Network

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When it comes into force, it would immediately eliminate duties on 99.9 per cent of goods imported from Ukraine and would likewise affect 86 per cent of Canadian exports to that nation. The remaining tariff concessions would be eliminated within seven years, according to a Canadian government statement.

The eventual result will be the removal of essentially all tariffs on goods currently traded between Canada and Ukraine.

The Canadian Meat Council welcomes the deal because it expands the market for Canadian products, says president Troy Warren.

“A strategic priority of Canada’s export-dependent meat industry is competitive access to every country in the world,” Warren said. “The eventual entry into force of the free trade agreement with Ukraine will represent another concrete step toward the realization of this important industry objective.”

He said Canadian meat packers and processors have a long-term interest in trade with Ukraine, not only as suppliers of high-quality meat protein to that country’s 45 million citizens, but also in the context of Ukraine’s access to the European Union and its trade with the countries of eastern Europe.

When fully implemented, the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement will provide duty-free access to Ukraine for an unlimited quantity of beef and veal, duty-free access for 20,000 tonnes of frozen pork, and duty-free access for an unlimited quantity of fresh chilled pork.

Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland said the deal “will generate opportunities for Canadians and Ukrainians and create new job opportunities.”

The deal was signed back in July during Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s first official visit to the country.

The Ukrainian market offers many opportunities for Canadian businesses and investors, in areas such as aerospace, agricultural equipment, information and communication technologies, agri-food, fish and seafood and mining equipment.

In 2015, bilateral trade between Canada and Ukraine increased by 14 per cent over 2014, totalling almost $278 million. Of this, Canada’s exports to Ukraine totalled approximately $210 million. Canadian products exported included pharmaceuticals, fish and seafood, and coking coal.

Canada’s merchandise imports from Ukraine totalled more than $67 million in 2015. Major imports included fertilizers, iron and steel, and anthracite coal.

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When John Masswohl toured the central London wholesale meat market in December, he found some Canadian beef for sale.

But not very much.

Five boxes of Prairie Heritage beef, from animals raised in Alberta and Saskatchewan, were on offer beside hundreds of boxes from the United States and entire pallets from Argentina, Uruguay and Australia.

“For every box of Canadian beef, he had at least 100 boxes from somewhere else,” said Masswohl, who is the director of government and international relations at the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association.

Marketers told him Canadian beef was expensive, in part due to tariffs. Technical issues also make it difficult to acquire.

That situation could change dramatically when the trade deal between Canada and the European Union, called the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement, comes into force.

“We’ve got an outstanding quality product and an outstanding eating experience that goes with it, and I think for a price, that would be very comparable to what Europeans are used to paying if we didn’t have to deal with all these tariffs and other conditions,” said Masswohl.

• Read more: Beef industry watching how new Liberal government proceeds

The deal will allow beef and veal exports worth an estimated $600 million, generated from 65,000 tonnes of new duty-free access to Europe. About 50,000 tonnes of that is in fresh beef and the balance in frozen product.

Using an estimate of 100 kilograms of fresh beef available per animal, it could translate into a market for 500,000 Canadian cattle, if they meet the EU requirement of being raised without the use of additional growth hormones.

“How many cattle do we have in Canada being produced according to EU standards, or could be if they were properly documented? I’d only be taking a guess,” said Masswohl, “but I think right now, today, somewhere less than 100,000 head. But with the incentive there, I’ve talked to lots of guys who say, ‘if the incentive is there, I’ll do it.’”

Not so sure

Feedlot owner Rick Paskal of Picture Butte, Alta., isn’t so sure the incentive will be enough to encourage more production of beef that meets EU specifications.

“They don’t recognize the science of the day, so we’ve got these free trade agreements with them, but it’s still just the same. We don’t meet their criteria for trade, which is not science based,” said Paskal.

“I don’t understand why we would have negotiated an agreement like this. It sounds like we’ve got an opportunity to put Canadian beef in Europe but we don’t and we never will.”

Paskal said use of growth hormones reduces beef production costs by about $250 per head through better feed conversion and shorter time to fatten. Price premiums offered in Europe for beef free of added hormones would have to cover that, and he thinks that is unlikely.

“It’s good that all the people around the world get talking to one another and they want to expedite trade and reduce trade barriers, but they’ve got to go back and… really, if there’s a spirit of trade, just address the science.

“It’s got nothing to do with food safety. We’re all big proponents of food safety, your product, your animal handling, the animal welfare aspects are very, very important. We’re not saying we’re ever going to circumvent them, but it’s got to be based on science.”

Opportunity

Doug Price, who runs Sunterra beef operations, said he sees opportunity through CETA for more beef exports but the price has to be right.

“We have the cows and the feedlots. I’ve got a pretty good handle on what it costs me to produce non-hormone, traceable cattle. It’s really easy for us to do that, but I need to know how much premium will I get for that before I do it,” he said.

Price suggested opportunities in Europe might better suit smaller, more nimble operations that can cater to higher-end niche markets.

“If we get some of our product over there, I think they’ll pay quite a premium for it. So I think the opportunity for sure is there. We just have to put all the pieces together,” said Price.

“Our genetics here in Canada and our technology inside the cow-calf right through to the feedlot to the plant is as good as anybody in the world and I think the genetics are even better. There’s less variability. So any kind of a quality market, man, we’re sitting real good there.”

Small scale

Producers involved in Prairie Heritage Beef have been meeting EU requirements and building their niche for years but on a relatively small scale.

Before selling the brand to One Earth Farms in October 2014, Prairie Heritage was selling beef from about 5,000 animals into Europe and another 5,000 domestically, said former president Cliff Drever of Camrose, Alta.

Christoph Weder, a cattle and bison producer in Hudson’s Hope, B.C., was the primary marketer for the branded beef line before its sale. In his view, Canadian producers won’t be able to fill the entire EU quota unless the two major packers in Western Canada, JBS and Cargill, develop separation of hormone-free and commercial beef.

He and others hold out hope that Harmony Beef, the former Rancher’s Beef processing plant in Balzac, Alta., that is expected to market specialty beef into Europe, will open soon. That would add to output provided by Canadian Premium Meats in Lacombe, another EU-approved plant.

However, Harmony Beef has been beset by water issues and various other objections put forward by the city of Calgary and has yet to start operation.

Producers with an eye to producing beef for Europe must meet specific requirements subject to Canadian Food Inspection Agency oversight.

Jason Hagel, a Three Hills, Alta. producer with Prairie Heritage, said those requirements might be enough to discourage greater production.

“I don’t think it will change much,” said Hagel.

“The program that Canada has in place is very onerous on producers to actually want to do it, with all the paperwork and CFIA vets having to come and make sure everything’s in place.

“Which we need, but it’s a lot easier just to take your cattle to market and sell them to a feedlot than going through a bunch of paperwork and having to keep track of the animals that you do send, have an inventory list and all that kind of stuff.”

Quotas and tariffs

Until CETA goes into effect, certain quotas and high tariffs remain in place so few producers are raising animals now with a view to the EU market.

“Right now it’s not worth it because you’re not getting any more money by doing that, as a cow-calf producer, than taking them to the market and just selling them in the open market,” said Hagel.

He said One Earth can’t afford to pay much more than the commodity market at present because any premium from Europe doesn’t cover the extra cost involved in producing the beef.

He also wonders if December’s repeal of country-of-origin labelling (COOL) in the United States, which used to discourage Canadian cattle sales across the 49th parallel, will prompt producers and packers to take that easier path.

“We have two American packing plants in Canada. They have pretty good connections in the States and can move the beef easier. They’re not going to chase after a market that has to change the way they do business in their own plants and cost a lot more.”

Not yet approved

And speaking of plants, the safety methods employed by Canada’s major packers have yet to meet the approval of the EU. That’s another hurdle that must be overcome before Canadian beef benefits from CETA.

These technical considerations are not part of the CETA agreement, but they exist in a side arrangement that says the two parties will work toward equivalence in their respective meat inspection systems.

That equivalence has yet to emerge, said Masswohl of the CCA.

“Our idea of equivalence means that we can do things our way. They can do things their way. Not everything needs to be harmonized but the end result, the outcome, is equivalent in that we both produce safe beef,” Masswohl said.

“What we’ve learned is Europe’s idea of equivalence is they want us to do it their way. But we’re not doing it their way. Our way is much safer.”

Canadian plants use various antimicrobial carcass washes and safety techniques after cattle are slaughtered to destroy E. coli and other bacteria. Europe does not use the same methods.

Their way

The big three plants in Canada process more than 90 per cent of the country’s beef. The volume of animals, the distance they travel and the weather all play a role in sanitary and phytosanitary considerations at the plants.

Europe, in contrast, has hundreds of slaughter facilities, many of them processing small numbers of animals delivered in small trucks from nearby locations.

“They say the animal needs to be clean before it comes into the slaughter facility,” said Masswohl. “So how does that work in our scenario where we have much colder temperatures to deal with for much longer periods of the year?

“The idea of washing animals outside when it’s below -20… it doesn’t seem like humane treatment for the animal. It seems impractical.”

Europe has agreed to the use of lactic acid as a sanitary measure and more recently approved the use of recycled hot water but approval will be needed for other safety-related treatments that have become standard in Canadian plants.

“They just don’t do any of that and they just can’t fathom doing anything else,” said Masswohl.

“We rather suspect that they like the system the way it is because it keeps imported beef out of their market. We rather suspect that that’s a big part of the motivation for the way they do it,” said Masswohl.

“If we don’t resolve this, then the (CETA) agreement is of very little value for the Canadian beef industry. If we do resolve it, it’s huge value for us. It’s worth working on.”

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La Financiere agricole du Quebec (FADQ) announced Friday that its board had agreed to end ASRA (Assurance stabilisation des revenus agricoles) coverage for Quebec’s milk-fed veal calf operations, effective Jan. 1, 2016.

Affected producers, after that date, will be eligible for coverage instead under the Agri-Quebec and Agri-Quebec Plus programs which, combined with the federal/provincial AgriStability and AgriInvest programs, will provide “advantageous” coverage levels, FADQ said.

FADQ’s decision follows “several months” of review, through which the agency said the sector has shown it would be impossible to objectively establish cost-of-production and sale price values — a situation the agency said is due in part to the lack of competition and “strong concentration” of sector activities.

According to La Terre de chez nous, the news organ of Quebec farm group l’Union des producteurs agricoles (UPA), most of the province’s veal operations are tightly integrated with its two main processing players, Ecolait and Delimax, which together handle about 90 per cent of veal slaughter volume.

According to the provincial cattle producers’ federation, Quebec today has about 160 veal calf producers, mainly in the St-Hyacinthe, Bois-Francs and Quebec City areas. A typical veal operation, the federation said, currently produces about 777 calves per year.

ASRA in 2014 based its coverage on 2008 values and production costs derived from an FADQ survey of specialized farms selling between 500 and 1,500 calves per year, for compensation of $130.20 per calf, or $106.62 per 100 kilograms.

FADQ said it had sought the help of veal sector representatives in recent months to show how the sector could fit into the ASRA model, but the agency’s analysis “established the impossibility of doing so.”

Expanding Agri-Quebec and Agri-Quebec Plus instead “will allow us to maintain support to this sector,” FADQ chair Diane Vincent said in a release Friday.

Agri-Quebec, a provincially funded program, is a risk management program complementary to AgriInvest. Agri-Quebec Plus, meanwhile, boosts the coverage level under AgriStability to 80 per cent, up from 70, for farms whose products aren’t eligible for ASRA. Farms eligible for AgriStability are automatically also enrolled in Agri-Quebec Plus.

The agency plans to “personally” contact affected producers to evaluate their options under Agri-Quebec and Agri-Quebec Plus, FADQ CEO Robert Keating said in Friday’s release.

The agency will also be in touch with banks and other financial institutions to clarify any concerns about the sector’s future viability, he added. — AGCanada.com Network

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St. Hyacinthe-based Ecolait, which markets veal under the Vivo brand, said Friday it’s bought the Le Veau Charlevoix brand, for an undisclosed sum, “in order to relaunch it.”

Le Veau Charlevoix, which began as founder Jean-Robert Audet’s veal cattle operation in the Charlevoix region in 1980, expanded into the slaughter and processing business in 1995 with a plant at Clermont, about 130 km northeast of Quebec City.

But the company shuttered its slaughter plant starting in September, citing a drop in consumer demand for veal as fallout from alleged mistreatment of livestock by certain producers in the veal business.

Le Veau Charlevoix, quoted in court documents in October, said it found the corresponding drop in retail veal prices “difficult to absorb.”

When the Clermont packing plant closed, the company said it planned to focus on seeking new investment and selling its inventory at retail.

But the company that month entered creditor protection, avoiding bankruptcy after its secured creditors accepted a proposal in which they’d get ownership of the Clermont abattoir’s building and equipment, while unsecured creditors would get the net proceeds from sales of remaining inventory.

The plant employees’ union in November said the Clermont plant’s owners hoped to line up new investors and relaunch operations as soon as possible.

A spokesperson for Ecolait said the deal announced Friday gives it the Charlevoix brand, the Charlevoix specification books and the company’s contracts with veal producers.

The provincially-certified Clermont plant “does not match” with Ecolait’s business model and its plan for the Charlevoix brand — a plan which in the short term involves increasing Charlevoix veal production tenfold, the spokesperson said.

Le Veau Charlevoix, on its website, said its products are produced mainly from Holstein cattle and occasionally from Limousin or Bleu Blanc Beige (BBB).

“New farms”

As for Audet, Ecolait said he has agreed to work with the company on the Veau Charlevoix brand’s redevelopment. Ecolait, in its release Friday, quoted him as saying the Charlevoix brand’s production has to be “thoroughly modernize(d)” for the brand to grow.

“Ecolait’s modern meat packing plant, its production plan certified by federal authorities and its strong distribution network will contribute to the maintenance and development of new family farms in all of Quebec’s regions,” Audet said in the release.

Charlevoix milk- and grain-fed veal, Ecolait said, is raised using production methods “designed specifically to meet consumer expectations.”

The Charlevoix products, the company said, “will soon be available again in grocery stores across Quebec,” noting the deal furthers Audet’s aim of developing and expanding the brand in all regions of the province.

“Le Veau Charlevoix is recognized as a symbol of quality not just in the Charlevoix region, but throughout the province of Quebec, and Ecolait will always be passionate about offering veal products of the highest quality,” Ecolait CEO Mario Maillet said in the same release. — AGCanada.com Network

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Loblaw, Sobeys and Metro have made all made recent commitments to move away from veal raised in crates, but none made any formal announcement to mark the occasion.

A release issued by Humane Societies International’s Canadian arm late last week linked the move by the three grocery chains to recent undercover footage filmed and released by the animal rights activist group Mercy for Animals, which shows calves being abused, beaten and shot.

Sayara Thurston, a campaign manager with Humane Society International said her organization welcomes the move made by the retailers.

“Confining newborn calves in tiny crates where they can barely move is an inhumane practice that causes immeasurable suffering to these infant animals, and we urge the entire veal industry to take steps to transition away from these archaic intensive confinement systems as soon as possible, in favour of open-housing systems that give calves more opportunity to move and interact with other animals,” Thurston said.

Canada has also failed to keep pace with other countries when it comes to veal production, she added.

The European Union officially banned veal crates in 2006, but some countries within the EU banned them as early as 1990.

However, Canadian veal producers are now moving away from crate production as well, according to Kevin Groh, vice-president of corporate affairs and communications for Loblaw.

• From the Alberta Farmer Express website: Meeting the consumers’ demand for sustainable beef production

“We do not condone animal abuse and have been working with industry partners and animal welfare experts to ensure animal welfare standards and Codes of Practice are in place to promote the care, protection and safety of farm animals,” he said in an emailed statement. “We are aware of a recent video aired by CTV’s ‘W5.’ We have notified our supplier of our concern and we will continue to monitor the situation as the company investigates.”

The Loblaw representative also noted the company “supports the voluntary commitment by the Ontario and Quebec milk-fed industry to eliminate the practice of raising milk-fed veal in individual stalls.”

Keri Scobie of Sobey’s western office confirmed that all stores in that chain, including its IGA stores in Quebec, will be eliminating veal crates from their supply chain by 2018.

“The whole industry is moving that way… everyone who is supplying veal is going to be compliant with this — industry is going in this direction,” she said.

Veal tends to be a bigger seller in Eastern Canada than on the Prairies, Scobie said, but added that stores stock it wherever there is a demand.

In 2012, 335,000 calves were slaughtered for human consumption in Canada, according to Humane Societies International.

That’s an increase from 2011, when 235,037 veal calves were raised on 1,235 Canadian farms. Fifty-two per cent of Canadian veal production occurs in Quebec, 45 per cent in Ontario. The remaining three per cent is split between Alberta and British Columbia.

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