DECEMBER 2015
CELEBRATING 136 YEARS AS CANADA’S PREMIER HORTICULTURAL PUBLICATION
VOLUME 65 NUMBER 12
GREAT LAKES FARMING
Climate change or business climate: what’s the bigger threat?
Global processing giant Bonduelle contracts about 90,000 acres of vegetables in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta for processing into frozen and canned foods at eight plants. South of the border, Bonduelle operates three processing and one packaging plant. Look at a map and they’re all clustered around the Great Lakes. The company is an interesting case study of the opportunities and threats on both sides of the border. Gary (left) and Russell Woolley along with Bonduelle’s agricultural technical program manager, Jennifer Thompson, sample the August pea harvest at Springfield, Ontario. Photos by Glenn Lowson.
INSIDE Marketing and sales in a digital world Page 7 Focus: Great Lakes Farming Page 14
Kudos to agri-innovation winners Page 22
www.thegrower.org P.M. 40012319 $3.00 CDN
KAREN DAVIDSON Springfield, Ontario –Think of peas and the ubiquitous Green Giant brand comes to mind. Global processor Bonduelle supplies peas for that brand yet chances are, its name doesn’t register high awareness in agriculture. But it should. With eight vegetable processing plants in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta, it contracts 90,000 acres of Canadian vegetables. Unlike the high-profile departure of Heinz from southwestern Ontario, Bonduelle Americas is digging in. A fire in its Tecumseh, Ontario plant on July 18, 2014 devastated 4.5 million kilograms of frozen vegetables and its warehouse. Bonduelle rebuilt. This month, more than a year later, the company is opening its new refrigerated warehouse with streamlined packaging lines. The 2015 acquisition in Lethbridge, Alberta and the reinvestment in Ontario are
noteworthy for the conglomerate headquartered in Villeneuve d’Ascq, France and helmed by the founder’s great-great grandson, Christophe Bonduelle. The processor also owns four plants in the states of New York and Wisconsin, so it has working knowledge of the vagaries of business on both sides of the border. For Canadian growers, it’s worth knowing how the processor is reading the competitive landscape. Brothers Gary and Russell Woolley, for example, and their father before them, have been growing peas, green beans and sweet corn for decades. “We like the flexibility that vegetable crops provide to us,” says Russell Woolley, a dairy and crops farmer. “The peas are harvested in August and we don’t have to wait to rotate into wheat. This area, south of the 401 highway, is considered to be in the Carolinian-Canada range. There are lots of plant species here and it’s a climate conducive
to growing field crops. The Great Lakes basin is not a bad place to be with adequate yearly rainfall and access to land.” Jim Poel, chair of the Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers, is a pea grower himself. He agrees that the 2015 season ended well despite a rainy start. “We’ve come off a terrific fall,” says Poel, “where our tillage practices are not damaging the soil. We’ve put everything to bed for winter well.” What Poel worries about is the long-term future of the processing industry. About 45,000 acres of processing vegetables – peas, carrots, sweet corn, celery, green beans and Brussels sprouts – are contracted to Bonduelle at plants in Tecumseh, Strathroy and Ingersoll, Ontario. “The reality is that the vision of the corporate world is not as long-term as of farm families looking to the fertility of their soils for the next generation,” says Poel. “In these corporate deals, it’s all about trading labels
and infrastructure.” That said, he applauds Bonduelle’s professional outreach during and after the Tecumseh fire. Much of that credit goes to Rob Anderson, vice-president Bonduelle Americas operations for Canada and the U.S. During this troubled time, there were silver linings. The global company had the financial resources to rebuild quickly. Bonduelle honoured all its contracts, diverting $20 million of crops standing in the field to other southwestern Ontario facilities. “We’re a private label partner,” explains Rob Anderson, who adds that Bonduelle processes and sells 85 per cent of the frozen and canned vegetables in Canada. “We serve retailers and foodservice and provide bulk ingredients to industrial companies such as Campbell’s and ConAgra.” What are the opportunities and threats in the near term? Continued on page 3