Provincial chief medical officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw tweeted Friday that “there are five cases linked to Cargill Case Ready Meats in #YYC.”

Provincial health officials “have visited the plant and are making sure necessary measures are in place to reduce transmission and protect workers,” she added, noting “widespread” testing is underway.

Cargill’s three case-ready plants in Canada — also including facilities at Guelph, Ont., and Chambly, Que. — provide packaged beef, pork, poultry, sausage and/or ground beef for retail sale, both in Canada and elsewhere.

The Calgary case-ready plant is separate from the company’s beef cattle slaughter and packing plant at High River, about 70 km south.

The High River plant underwent a two-week shutdown in late April as COVID-19 infected nearly half the plant’s work force of about 2,000 people, in an outbreak causing the deaths of two workers and the father of a plant worker.

The case-ready plant at Chambly, a South Shore suburb of Montreal, also temporarily shut down in May for all employees to be tested when its COVID case count hit 64. The case-ready plant at Guelph reported a few cases of COVID in May.

More details on the Calgary outbreak are available at the Canadian Cattlemen website. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The partial closure follows a positive COVID-19 test by a worker at U.S. chicken company Sanderson Farms announced this week.

The spread of COVID-19 has led to consumer hoarding of staple groceries, making meat processing more lucrative.

Alberta’s health department notified Harmony on Thursday that a worker who had not been on the job for days had tested positive, Harmony spokesman Crosbie Cotton said. The company then sent the other workers in his part of the slaughter area home for 14 days, even though they did not display symptoms.

In a statement, CFIA confirmed it did not provide inspection services on Friday after it learned that a Harmony employee had tested positive for COVID-19.

Federally regulated slaughter plants are not allowed to operate without inspectors present.

The plant at Balzac, just north of Calgary, can process 750 head of cattle per day, much less than bigger Alberta plants owned by Cargill and JBS. While slaughter has halted at Harmony, it is still carrying out other types of processing, Cotton said.

Harmony, owned by the Vesta family, hopes to fully reopen on Monday pending talks with CFIA, he said.

Alberta produces more beef than any other Canadian province.

Meat production is so profitable currently that Cargill and JBS have added Saturday shifts, said Kevin Grier, a meat and livestock analyst.

Meat plants have gone to great lengths to prevent the spread of COVID-19, including assembly of tents and trailers to create greater distance among workers, Grier said.

Harmony screens every worker daily for symptoms and increased cleaning in the plant weeks ago, Cotton said.

CFIA told meat processing plants last week it would reduce the agency’s staffed hours at domestic plants because of capacity constraints.

— Reporting for Reuters by Kelsey Johnson in Ottawa and Rod Nickel in Winnipeg.

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Saskatoon-based Federated Co-op announced Monday it will consolidate its production of bulk and bagged cattle, horse, sheep and poultry feed into three of its existing plants, at Calgary, Saskatoon and Moosomin, Sask.

That means winding down operations and shuttering Co-op Feeds’ plants at Melfort, Sask. in August and at Brandon, Man. in October. Media outlets in Manitoba and Saskatchewan on Monday quoted Federated Co-op officials as saying those two closures will affect a total of 10 jobs.

The sixth Co-op Feeds plant, at Edmonton, and its operations are to be transferred to Wetaskiwin, Alta.-based Country Junction Feeds, a division of Wetaskiwin Co-op, at the end of September.

Federated Co-op said Monday it will make “significant capital investments” to modernize Co-op Feeds’ three remaining plants, including new bagging equipment to support “better stitched, open-mouth bags.”

“While we don’t make these decisions lightly, by consolidating manufacturing and taking measures to refocus our resources in the livestock sector, we’re better able to serve our local co-ops and their producer customers across Western Canada well into the future,” Ron Healey, Federated Co-op’s vice-president for ag and consumer business, said in a release.

Federated Co-op said it undertook a “full review” of its feed business — and its decisions to close facilities and make capital investments at others are meant to “address unprecedented competitor consolidation and a changing market in the feed sector.”

The parent co-operative said it’s “making these changes to help ensure that it can continue providing Co-op feed products and services in the long term.”

Shelley Revering, Federated Co-op’s director for feed, said the move “results from industry challenges and in no way reflects the substantial efforts of our plant teams.”

For its part, Country Junction Feeds said in a separate release Tuesday its acquisition of the Edmonton feed milling plant will provide “significant feed mill capacity directed at serving northern Alberta and beyond.”

Combined with its current operation, the company said, the Edmonton plant will allow it to deliver a “wide range of feed and solutions to fit all major livestock and equine species and production approaches, including tailored solutions for different stages of life and both conventional and niche market opportunities.”

Country Junction today bills its Wetaskiwin plant, built in 1973, as the “only full-line feed mill producing organic feeds in Alberta.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The crop protection arm of the German chemical company said Wednesday it wants to move the Canadian head office “closer to customers” after closing its deals last year to buy a “range of businesses and assets” in the sector from Bayer CropScience.

The move is to include “reorganization of several roles” within the head office, the company said.

“The strategic decision to move our headquarters west will amplify our ability to walk alongside Canadian farmers as they look to deliver sustainable agricultural solutions both today and, in the future,” Jonathan Sweat, BASF Ag Solutions’ vice-president for business management in Canada, said in a release.

That said, the company will “maintain its presence” in both Western and Eastern Canada.

BASF’s canola, cereals and pulse business will operate out of the new headquarters in Calgary, while its corn, soy, horticulture, and specialty products portfolio “will continue to be run from the east.”

BASF Ag Solutions’ leadership team will also “continue to span the country” with “key roles” in Calgary and Mississauga as well as in Regina, Saskatoon and Winnipeg.

In the wake of its takeover last year of U.S. seed and ag chem firm Monsanto, Bayer sold off several major assets to BASF including its traits and breeding for soybeans, cotton and canola.

Significantly for the Canadian market, that included the Liberty (glufosinate ammonium) herbicide business and LibertyLink and InVigor traits, a seed processing facility in Lethbridge, chemical formulation and distribution facilities in Regina and a seed breeding centre in Saskatoon. Those deals alone saw about 300 Bayer employees working in commercial R+D, breeding and production in Canada transfer to BASF.

BASF also bought Bayer’s Poncho, ILeVO, VOTiVO and COPeO seed treatments, its Nunhems global vegetable seeds business, its research and development platform for hybrid wheat, its canola-quality juncea research and its Xarvio digital farming platform.

BASF also reached a deal earlier this year to sell its Clearfield herbicide-tolerant canola system and imazamox/imazapyr herbicides to DowDuPont’s Corteva Agriscience.

Canada’s Competition Bureau had ordered BASF to find a buyer for the Clearfield business, as a condition of its approval for BASF to pick up the LibertyLink system. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The partner companies had made various promises at the time and many in Western Canada were cautious, hoping for the best but not fully knowing what to expect.

A year later, Nutrien has begun to settle into its new role in the agriculture world — and according to retailers and producers it hasn’t really shaken things up all that much.

However, a few aspects of the merger still have many in Western Canada cautiously watching.

“I don’t want to pretend to call it a non-event because there’s always a concern about consolidation and all I can say at the moment is it doesn’t have any obvious impact,” said Ray Redfern of Redfern Farm Services in southwestern Manitoba.

Before the merger, Redfern, an independent crop input retailer, sold both Agrium and PotashCorp products. Most Agrium products were bought directly from the company, while PotashCorp products were bought through a middleman, Agrico.

Since the merger, those purchases have continued as before. Redfern estimated, though, that an increasing portion of purchases are now being bought directly through Nutrien.

On the producer side, the merger remains a wait-and-see game as many of the new company’s changes are still ongoing, according to Todd Lewis, president of the Agriculture Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS).

“There were some concerns, I know, in some areas with the amalgamations that there was going to be lost capacity, as far as delivery opportunities and picking up fertilizer,” he said.

In July, Nutrien rebranded Agrium’s Crop Production Services retailers as Nutrien Ag Solutions and invested money in upgrades to the retailers.

Lewis expected producers will find out this spring when they go to pick up fertilizer if the changes helped to improve wait times for pickups.

Out of office

There is concern from producers, though, if Nutrien will follow through with all of the promises it made before the merger, according to Lewis.

“A lot (of the news) about (Nutrien) in the media is about the head office here in Saskatchewan. I think Saskatchewan producers see that and kind of wonder about some of the promises that were made, if that wasn’t being kept, are some of the other ones at risk as well.”

Before the merger Nutrien had promised Saskatchewan it would keep Saskatoon, the home city for PotashCorp’s headquarters, as its head office location. PotashCorp was originally a provincial Crown corporation and when it was privatized in 1989, legislation required PotashCorp and any successors to maintain a head office in Saskatchewan.

Since the merger, though, almost all of Nutrien’s executives have been based out of the company’s Calgary office.

One unexpected change made by Nutrien was the company’s decision in February to shut down phosphate production at its facility near Redwater, Alta., northeast of Edmonton.

The Redwater plant, owned by Agrium before the merger, was the only phosphate manufacturer in Canada, while PotashCorp had phosphate facilities in the United States. For cost savings, Nutrien decided to move all of its phosphate production to the U.S.

Independent retailers have been warned by Nutrien they will have to ship phosphate in themselves, Redfern said.

However, for retailers in Manitoba such as Redfern Farm Services, Nutrien has said it will still distribute phosphate product from its facility near Portage la Prairie.

The shift to U.S.-made phosphate products has provided an incentive for more competition in the market. Before the merger, Agrium had the advantage of being the only retailer of Canadian phosphate products.

However, now that all phosphate products will be coming from outside of Canada, other retailers have started to expand their physical presence in Canada.

“(We’re hoping) that added competition here will bring fertilizer prices down, (or) at least keep (them) throttled a little bit anyway because we need good competition to make sure we’re paying a fair price,” Lewis said, adding Nutrien has assured farmers they won’t end up paying more for phosphate because of the closure.

— Ashley Robinson writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Glacier FarmMedia company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting. Follow her at @AshleyMR1993 on Twitter.

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Glacier FarmMedia announced Monday it has acquired and will assume management of the Farm Forum Event, an annual professional development event for farmers, starting with its 20th anniversary show in December in Calgary.

The event, launched in 1999 by agronomic consulting company Agri-Trend Inc., has been hosted by California-based GPS technology firm Trimble since it bought Agri-Trend in 2016.

Financial terms of the agreement with Glacier won’t be disclosed. Trimble remains a “presenting sponsor” for the 20th anniversary event, running Dec. 4-6 at Calgary’s Telus Convention Centre, while GFM handles operations.

The three-day event offers TED Talk-style information sessions, industry panels and a trade show, updating farmers on new innovations and research in nutrients, crop management, finances, markets and equipment, GFM said.

“This event is an excellent fit with Glacier FarmMedia’s strong connections to farmers and crop advisors and compliments our outdoor farm shows and media properties,” GFM president Bob Willcox said Monday in a release.

GFM, an arm of Vancouver-based business information firm Glacier Media and publisher of Canadian farm journals and newspapers including the Western Producer, Country Guide, Grainews, Canadian Cattlemen and others — and operator of this website — is no stranger to ag event planning, having owned and operated Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show at Woodstock, Ont. since 2011.

The company also launched a new annual Prairie outdoor farm show, Ag in Motion, near Langham, Sask. in 2015.

For 2018, the Farm Forum Event is scheduled to include FutureCast panels of experts from academia and industry discussing autonomous machinery and advances in agronomy; a review of three years’ results from the Agri-Prize Canola 100 competition; a new series of breakfast table talks; and breakout learning sessions on topics including on-farm storage, farm equipment, markets, agronomy, soil health and precision agriculture.

Speakers scheduled to appear at the 2018 event include U.S. farmer and blogger Jolene Brown, U.S. farm policy reporter Sara Wyant, market and weather analyst Bruce Burnett of MarketsFarm.com, market analyst Mike Jubinville of ProFarmer Canada, Prairie ag journalists Mike Raine and Ed White and Trimble global business development lead Rob Saik, founder of the Agri-Prize Canola 100 competition.

“This unique event has attracted the industry’s smartest and most entrepreneurial farmers and crop advisors — those who want to be at the cutting edge of new technologies and agronomic strategies that promise to drive productivity,” Darren Howie, director of worldwide sales for Trimble Ag Business Solutions, said in Monday’s release. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Gay Lea announced Monday it has bought the family-owned processor, effective Friday (Oct. 13), for an undisclosed sum.

Set up in 1976 by cheesemaker Frank Talarico, Alberta Cheese makes “traditional” Italian cheeses for sale under the Franco’s and Sorrento brands, and imports and distributes cheeses and other foods from other countries.

Gay Lea Foods said its deal adds the Franco’s and Sorrento brands to its own roster of Ontario cheeses and will “further increase the production capacity of the co-operative.”

The co-op said it also expects the deal to help expand its relationships with Alberta foodservice providers, retailers and consumers.

Gay Lea said it also plans to “maintain full operations” at the Alberta Cheese plant and preserve relationships with existing customers, suppliers and employees. The plant currently has a staff of 28.

Talarico started his career in cheese at a facility his father owned in Ontario, where he worked until the mid-1970s.

“My family leveraged our heritage, passion and expertise to launch Alberta Cheese, and we are immensely proud to see it become part of a successful and growing co-operative like Gay Lea Foods,” Talarico said in the co-op’s release.

Gay Lea, Ontario’s biggest dairy co-op with over 1,300 member dairy farms and 950 staff, has been on a growth-by-acquisition track in recent years in its home province, buying butter maker Stirling Creamery and cheesemaker Black River last year, as well as goat dairy Hewitt’s Dairy and Hamilton-based Salerno Dairy in 2014.

In all, the Mississauga-based co-op so far has 12 production facilities and distribution centres across Ontario and Quebec.

The co-op last year also budgeted $140 million to set up an nutrition and nutraceutical-grade dairy ingredients hub through upgrades and expansions at its Ontario facilities, plus a new research and development centre in Hamilton.

Its moves into Western Canada also include plans announced last year for a dairy ingredient and butter plant in Winnipeg, in a joint venture with processor Vitalus Nutrition. — AGCanada.com Network

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Philadelphia-based FMC Corp. announced Thursday it received the final approval needed, from the Competition Commission of India, to close the deal the company reached with DuPont in late March.

FMC’s deal allows DuPont to shed several of the assets required to meet regulators’ conditions for its own merger with Dow Chemical, which closed Sept. 1.

The deal, an asset swap which will see DuPont get FMC’s health and nutrition business plus US$1.2 billion cash, is now on track to close effective Nov. 1, FMC CEO Pierre Brondeau said in a release.

For Canadian farmers, the deal will see FMC take over DuPont’s portfolio of cereal broadleaf and pre-seed burn-off herbicides in Canada.

The deal also gives FMC the PrecisionPac herbicide dispensing system; DuPont’s experimental farm at Hanley, Sask., south of Saskatoon; a packaging plant in Calgary; and a chemical manufacturing facility at Manati in Puerto Rico.

The Competition Bureau of Canada, which cleared the Dow/DuPont merger in June, noted the deal will also give FMC DuPont’s Stine facility at Newark, Delaware.

The Stine plant, the bureau said, today houses DuPont’s “primary herbicide discovery and development efforts for Canadian markets.”

FMC, which maintains a Canadian office in Saskatoon, is an “acceptable” buyer for the DuPont assets, with “the managerial, operational and financial capability to compete effectively in Canada,” the bureau said in June.

FMC’s Canadian brand portfolio includes Aim, Authority, Command 360 and Focus herbicides, Rovral, Fracture and Fullback fungicides and Pounce, Beleaf and Capture insecticides. — AGCanada.com Network

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Stephen Schwarzman made his remarks after addressing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet, who are holding a two-day retreat in Calgary to discuss U.S. ties, in particular Trump’s demands to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. Canada sends about 75 per cent of its exports to its southern neighbor.

Schwarzman, named by Trump to a lead a forum that includes a variety of major U.S. corporations to advise on job creation, said Canada was well-placed to deal with any changes.

“Canada finds itself, frankly, in a really very special status,” Schwarzman told reporters after addressing cabinet.

Schwarzman’s message will undoubtedly please Canadian officials, who have been trying hard to persuade the new U.S. administration that focusing on their border to the north makes no sense given how closely the economies are linked.

U.S. officials say Trump is more focused on large U.S. trade deficits with countries such as China and Mexico, the third signatory of NAFTA. Senior U.S. and Mexico officials will meet this week to discuss trade, security and immigration. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Trump will meet at the end of January.

On Monday, Trump said that he plans to renegotiate NAFTA “at the appropriate time.”

A senior Canadian official on Sunday expressed concern the country could suffer collateral damage as the U.S targeted Mexico, a prospect Schwarzman dismissed.

“I don’t think he should be enormously worried because Canada is held in very high regard,” he said, referring to Trudeau.

Schwarzman is chief executive of major investment firm Blackstone Group LP. He does not have a formal role at the White House.

Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, had planned to travel to Calgary for talks with Trudeau officials on Tuesday but scrapped the visit because of logistical problems, a Canadian government source said.

Trudeau’s leadership team is meeting in Calgary less than two weeks after the prime minister shuffled his cabinet to put his foreign minister in charge of U.S. ties with a focus on the best approach to take with Trump, who took office on Jan. 20.

The challenge of dealing with Washington comes at a sensitive time for Trudeau, who is facing probes into a vacation he took with the Aga Khan as well as his centrist Liberal Party’s fundraising activities.

— David Ljunggren is a Reuters political correspondent based in Ottawa. Follow him at @reutersLjungg on Twitter.

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Atlanta-based chain Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen announced Tuesday it plans to open a new store in November in the Tamarack area of Edmonton, followed by a store in Calgary’s Forest Lawn area, then “subsequent locations” through this fall and into next spring.

The NASDAQ-traded company, as of July 10, has 2,594 locations worldwide, of which about 1,900 are in the U.S. and 100 in Canada, all in Ontario.

The company said its Alberta franchisees plan to open locations “across Edmonton and Calgary” by the end of 2017.

“The growth of our brand amongst our Canadian neighbours is especially exciting as it indicates a blossoming appreciation for our Louisiana culinary heritage,” Andrew Skehan, Popeyes’ president for international operations, said in a release.

Popeyes has been on an aggressive expansion track in recent years, having reported opening over 1,200 new restaurants since 2008 and 219 stores in fiscal 2015 alone, with average global same-store sales growth of 4.1 per cent over the past seven years.

The company, which booked US$45.1 million in net income in 2015 on total revenues of US$259 million, said in its annual report it aims to boost its worldwide restaurant count to about 4,000 over the next seven to 10 years.

The Popeyes business, founded in New Orleans in 1972, describes its “Louisiana heritage” as “a platform for ongoing culinary innovation, creating distinctive building design, exuding warm Louisiana hospitality, and giving back to the communities where we serve.”

The company said the name “Popeyes,” picked by restaurant founder Alvin Copeland, was lifted from “Popeye” Doyle, best known as Gene Hackman’s character in the 1971 film The French Connection.

The spinach-chugging U.S. cartoon character more often linked to the name is already the licensed mascot for Edmonton-based Popeye’s, a retail chain specializing in nutritional supplements for athletes, with about 125 outlets across Canada.

The retailer’s trademark in Canada covers the brand’s use in operating “retail stores selling nutritional supplements.”

The Popeyes dining chain, meanwhile, has held its separate trademark for use of the “Popeyes” brand in “restaurant services” in Canada since 1988. It had set up its first restaurant outside the U.S. in Toronto in 1984. — AGCanada.com Network

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