Corrected, Dec. 6, 2019 — The former ag retail distribution and feed milling businesses of Co-op Atlantic are set to take the new name of their sister company.
Sollio Agriculture, the agribusiness arm of Quebec-based La Coop federee, announced Monday its Atlantic Farm Services business is officially rebranding with the Sollio Agriculture trademark, which La Coop’s other agribusiness operations took on earlier this year.
Sollio Agriculture said the change marks the last step in La Coop federee’s 2015 acquisition of Moncton-based Atlantic Farm Services, which distributes feed products, crop inputs, farm inputs and animal health products and operates feed mills at Truro and New Minas, N.S. and at Moncton.
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Under the Sollio Agriculture name, Atlantic will continue distributing Sollio products and offering agronomic services to farmers through 19 Co-op Country Stores, of which 15 are operated by member co-ops in La Coop federee.
Those retail sites will keep their names, the company said, but “will progressively display the Sollio Agriculture brand.”
“This brand deployment will further reinforce the tradition of agricultural co-operation within Atlantic Canada,” Marty Donnelly, who’s now the Atlantic regional manager for livestock production with Sollio Agriculture, said in a release Monday.
The rebranding “demonstrates our position as a leader in the Canadian agriculture industry with operations in nine provinces and counting,” Sebastien Leveille, CEO of Sollio Agriculture, said in the same release.
Elsewhere in Canada, Sollio Agriculture’s businesses include grain marketing and handling operations and crop retail supply businesses in Quebec and Ontario; a joint-venture stake in Ontario-based South West Ag Partners; and livestock feed processing and services to the poultry, pork, dairy and beef cattle and horse sectors.
Sollio Agriculture already made a new mark in Atlantic Canada in April when it announced it would put up $4.2 million to have a new grain elevator facility built at Truro for use starting this fall.
The new Truro site is meant to “serve a dual purpose of increasing reception and storage capacity — a recurring issue for field crop producers in the region — and optimizing the reception and distribution of proteins and grains destined for mills in the region,” Leveille said at the time.
The Truro elevator is to include five new steel silos — two for grain, mainly corn and wheat, and three for byproducts used in feed manufacturing — plus five loading bins, a continuous weighing system and new office space.
Sollio Agriculture in April said it expected that by 2020 it would handle annual volume of around 100,000 tonnes, which would mean taking in an additional 25,000 tonnes of grains and 37,500 tonnes of proteins. — Glacier FarmMedia Network
CORRECTION, Dec. 6, 2019 — An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated Elite, La coop federee’s seed business, had also rebranded under the Sollio Agriculture name. We regret the error.
