La Coop federee announced Monday it will officially present Sollio Cooperative Group as its “new identity” on Thursday during the organization’s annual general meeting in Montreal.

The co-operative, ranked No. 24 on the list of the world’s biggest ag co-ops, recently telegraphed the change on social media and has already soft-rebranded its Twitter accounts.

The “Sollio” moniker isn’t completely new to La Coop customers either; the co-operative officially rebranded its agribusiness division as Sollio Agriculture last March and its Atlantic Farm Services business adopted the same trademark in December.

A co-op representative in 2018 described Sollio as an “evocative” name taking its meaning from “concepts that are dear to agricultural producers” including:

• the land — that is, the soil — which is “carried on from one generation to the next;”
• solicitude, “the feeling of sustained and loving attention that we have for our family, our community and our land,” and
• solidarity, “which characterizes our co-operative nature.”

La Coop, set up in 1922 as La Cooperative federee de Quebec in a merger of three agrifood co-ops, is now the overarching organization for 57 member co-operatives.

The organization bills itself as “the only Canada-wide” agricultural co-operative and the biggest agrifood company in its home province.

La Coop’s operations include meat packer Olymel and retail hardware and home renovation supply chain Groupe BMR.

The agribusiness arm, Sollio Agriculture, manages La Coop’s farm and ag retail, feed milling, grain handling, poultry production and ag research assets. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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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.

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.

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The agribusiness co-operative announced Thursday its Olymel and Sollio Agriculture arms have “received the green light” from the federal Competition Bureau to buy the hog breeding, pork slaughter and packing, grain sourcing and feed milling operations of F. Menard.

The deal, which La Coop and F. Menard first announced in July, is now expected to close Jan. 6, La Coop said in a release.

The Competition Bureau’s approval for the sale comes with no conditions attached, an Olymel spokesperson confirmed Thursday.

The deal’s financial terms won’t be disclosed, La Coop added. Companies planning mergers or takeovers are required to notify the Competition Bureau in advance if the targeted assets in Canada are valued at or generate sales in or from Canada of $96 million or more.

Set up at Ange-Gardien, Que. in 1961 by Fulgence Menard, the Menard business today has over 1,200 employees across all its business lines and accounts for production of over 1.1 million hogs per year on over 300 farms, or about 15 per cent of all Quebec production.

The deal will see Olymel, La Coop’s meat packing arm, take over management of F. Menard-owned hog farms.

Olymel will also take up F. Menard’s pork slaughter, cutting and deboning plant, which saw a $7 million expansion in 2016 and today has a weekly slaughter capacity of 25,000 hogs on one shift, at Ange-Gardien, about 60 km east of Montreal.

The deal also includes the F. Menard pork further-processing plant at nearby St-Jean-sur-Richelieu; a bacon plant at Henryville; two specialized butcher shops; and the company’s transportation fleet.

F. Menard distributes its products in Canada and in 30 other countries, most notably Japan, and launched its own bacon retail brand, Le Meilleur Bacon, in 2017.

La Coop’s Sollio Agriculture arm, meanwhile, will take over F. Menard’s 500,000-tonne per year milling operations at Ange-Gardien and nearby Saint-Pie-de-Bagot and its grain storage and drying facilities at nearby Sainte-Brigide-d’Iberville.

F. Menard’s separate operations in poultry production are not part of the deal, La Coop said in July.

La Coop’s president, Ghislain Gervais, said Thursday the deal “will provide Canada with one of the biggest agri-food companies in both the meat and milling sectors.”

Furthermore, he said, it “strengthens our ability to compete with world-class companies and consolidate our position in domestic and international markets” and will allow the combined companies to “push the limits of their respective markets.”

Sollio Agriculture’s CEO Sebastien Leveille said the deal will “consolidate (its) footprint in Quebec,” a market he said “remains of vital importance” to the company “although we are increasingly active elsewhere in the country.”

F. Menard executive director Luc Menard said Thursday the bureau “has just authorized a transaction that represents the best possible solution for the continued growth of the company to which our family has dedicated its heart and soul for nearly 60 years.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The agrifood co-operative announced Tuesday its Olymel and Sollio Agriculture businesses have an agreement in place to buy the hog breeding, pork slaughter and packing, grain sourcing and feed milling operations of family-owned Quebec agribusiness F. Menard.

The deal’s financial terms won’t be disclosed, La Coop federee said — though it noted the deal will need approval from the federal Competition Bureau, which is required for transactions valued at over $96 million.

Set up at Ange-Gardien, Que. in 1961 by Fulgence Menard, the Menard business today has over 1,200 employees across all its business lines and accounts for production of over 1.1 million hogs per year on over 300 farms, or about 15 per cent of all Quebec production.

F. Menard distributes its products in Canada and in 30 other countries, most notably Japan, and launched its own bacon retail brand, Le Meilleur Bacon, in 2017.

The deal will see La Coop’s meat packing business, Olymel, take over management of F. Menard-owned hog farms, plus:

• a pork slaughter, cutting and deboning plant, which saw a $7 million expansion in 2016 and today has a weekly slaughter capacity of 25,000 hogs on one shift, at Ange-Gardien, about 60 km east of Montreal;
• a pork product plant at nearby St-Jean-sur-Richelieu;
• a 70,000-square-foot bacon plant, set up in 2011 at Henryville, about 45 km southwest of Ange-Gardien;
• two specialized butcher shops; and
• the company’s transportation fleet.

La Coop’s Sollio Agriculture arm, meanwhile, will take over F. Menard’s 500,000-tonne per year milling operations at Ange-Gardien and nearby Saint-Pie-de-Bagot and its grain storage and drying facilities at nearby Sainte-Brigide-d’Iberville.

F. Menard’s separate operations in poultry production are not part of the deal, La Coop said.

“After long strategic reflection, the decision to sell the company proved to be the best solution to ensure a promising future for F. Menard,” the company’s executive director Luc Menard said in La Coop’s release.

“We have come to the decision we are announcing to you today with the preservation and development of what we have built over the past six decades and the interest and future of our employees in mind.”

Olymel CEO Rejean Nadeau said the combined business “will take advantage of new synergies and increased capabilities to offer our customers and consumers high-quality products and excellent service,” but didn’t specify what the synergies will involve.

La Coop’s executive committee president Ghislain Gervais said Olymel “has all the resources and expertise to help F. Menard grow, take its expertise further and leverage the growth resulting from this agreement to compete even more effectively with world-class companies in all markets.”

Olymel today has over 13,000 employees at meat production and processing plants in Quebec and four other provinces, and exports nearly a third of its total sales.

Sollio Agriculture CEO Sebastien Leveille said the Menard feed operations “will continue independently” within Sollio once the deal closes.

The Menard feed business’ “expertise and employees will be invaluable in positioning Sollio Agriculture’s milling activities and strengthening our leadership role in the marketing of agricultural inputs in Canada,” he said. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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“Feed was coming from out west, but now we’re starting to produce the seed itself here,” said Andre Lussier, who farms near St. Hyacinthe, Que. and is a director with the Canadian Seed Growers’ Association.

Quebec producers were getting more than $5 per bushel for their hybrid rye on contracts for next year, he said.

According to the latest data from Statistics Canada’s Production of Principal Field Crops, released Thursday, Quebec produced 17,800 tonnes of rye this year. That was an increase of almost 19 per cent over last year and it was the province’s second largest rye crop on record.

“I think there are two reasons why it went up. The first one is there is a very large increase in the use of cover crops. We used to grow grass and people are switching to rye,” Lussier said.

The other reason he cited was hybrid rye has provided Quebec farmers with good yields by surviving their winters quite well.

Greg Stamp of Stamp Seeds at Enchant, Alta., which has been working with Quebec’s La Coop Federee, suggested another reason for Quebec farmers having turned to rye: using the straw as bedding for animals.

“Straw is pretty valuable in Quebec. They don’t grow a lot of stuff they can bed animals with,” he said.

Rye production in Quebec ranked fifth in the country, according to Statistics Canada. In second was Ontario, which witnessed a 29 per cent increase in rye production for 67,800 tonnes in 2018.

Stamp suggested the longer growing season in Eastern Canada may have played into boosting their rye production.

The amount of fall rye seeded this year in Quebec jumped by more than 26 per cent to 39,000 acres according to Statistics Canada. As for Quebec’s winter wheat, there was a drop of over 10 per cent to 45,500 acres seeded.

It was a little different in Ontario, with its fall rye acres planted this autumn slipped by 20 per cent to 91,500 acres. However, it’s still projected to be one of the province’s largest fall rye crops in 16 years, according to Statistics Canada.

Also in Ontario, winter wheat acres climbed by 3.5 per cent to 1,003,400 acres.

— Glen Hallick writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Glacier FarmMedia company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting. Follow CNS Canada at @CNSCanada on Twitter.

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La Coop announced Sept. 25 it will change the name of the division — which today operates under the Elite and La Coop brand names — to Sollio Agriculture in winter 2019.

The agribusiness division includes La Coop’s grain marketing operations in Quebec, its crop retail supply businesses in Quebec and eastern Ontario, livestock feed processing and services to the poultry, pork, dairy and beef cattle and horse sectors and, since 2016, the Atlantic Farm Services business formerly operated by Co-op Atlantic.

Given the “regulatory, technological and generational changes” in agriculture, “it was becoming essential to give the agribusiness division of La Coop federee a strong identity that encompasses the realities of farmers and allows us to stand out in an increasingly competitive market,” Sebastien Leveille, the division’s executive vice-president, said in a release.

The Sollio brand “will be officially rolled out early in 2019 to support the organization’s corporate activities,” La Coop said.

A company representative said via email the new brand is an “evocative” name taking its meaning from “concepts that are dear to agricultural producers” including:

• the land — that is, the soil — which is “carried on from one generation to the next;”
• solicitude, “the feeling of sustained and loving attention that we have for our family, our community and our land,” and
• solidarity, “which characterizes our co-operative nature.”

La Coop said its rebranding decision “is the result of a process that has taken 18 months and allowed the organization to take the pulse of the Canadian agribusiness reality.”

Asked whether the Sollio banner will apply to the Atlantic Farm Services business, the co-op’s spokesperson said workshops are to be held “over the coming months” with representatives of La Coop’s networks outside Quebec to work out when and how the new brand “will start its journey in every region of Canada.”

La Coop’s other brands outside its agribusiness division include its fuel company Sonic Energy, its meat packing division Olymel, and its Unimat and Groupe BMR hardware and home renovation retail chains. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The partnership will have a broad, national presence, the organizations said in a release.

Maizex Seeds produces and markets seed corn and seed soybeans, while La Coop fédérée produces and markets seed for corn, soybeans, cereals, and forages under the Elite brand. The partnership with Maizex will enable the two organizations to add further to the strengths and expertise that each brand currently brings to the market. Over the coming months, the companies will be working together to launch a comprehensive market strategy to provide full product access and support to farmers across the country.

“As seed and grain distribution operations are becoming more competitive every day, we are pleased to invest and reinforce our presence in Ontario and on the Canadian market,” said Ghislain Gervais, president, La Coop fédérée. “This partnership will generate new efficiencies but more importantly better seed offering to all farmers in Canada.”

“La Coop fédérée is the ideal partner for Maizex, not only given their ownership and shared values, but also their shared vision to invest in the scale and scope of seed business needed to service Canadian farmers across this great nation well into the future,” said Dave Baute, president and CEO of Maizex Seeds. He said La Coop fédérée has a track record of success that has resulted in it being one of the largest Canadian agri-food organizations.

The financial terms of this agreement will not be made public.

This is a latest move in Ontario by La Coop fédérée. It recently purchased Cargill’s Ontario grain retail outlets.

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Cargill announced today that it will sell its grain and crop inputs retail assets in Ontario to La Coop fédérée.

The deal includes Cargill’s 50 per cent ownership position in South West Ag Partners, which includes nine grain and crop input facilities.

The deal does not include Cargill’s export terminal in Sarnia or the AgResource crop inputs wholesale business.

Why it matters: The deal means more concentration in the crop inputs business in Ontario, as La Coop fédérée already owns other significant assets in crop inputs and retail in the province.

“After an in-depth evaluation of our grain and crop inputs businesses in Ontario, we came to the conclusion that a sale of those assets was the best path forward to remain competitive and deliver on our growth strategy,” said Dave Baudler, managing director for Cargill’s grain business. “ La Coop fédérée was the buyer of choice to ensure a smooth transition for employees and customers,”

La Coop fédérée already owns the Agromart retail group and in total four crop input terminals, 16 locally-owned joint-venture retailers and a grain trading group in Ontario.

“We are confident that existing customers will benefit greatly from our experience and expertise in providing crop input, grain handling and merchandising services in the region, and from having access to a broad agribusiness retail network that reaches well beyond Ontario, with over a hundred affiliated locations across Canada,” said Sébastien Léveillé, executive agribusiness vice-president for La Coop fédérée.

Here’s the list of facilities being sold from Cargill to La Coop fédérée:

• Cargill grain: Melbourne, Princeton, Shetland, Staples, Talbotville
• Cargill crop inputs: Alliston, Clinton, Courtland, Harriston, Harrow, Melbourne, Mount Albert, Princeton, Shetland, Talbotville, Tilbury, Waterford
• South West Ag Partners grain: Becher; Grande Pointe; Palmerston Grain; Rutherford; Tupperville; Wallaceburg; all grain satellite relationships
• South West Ag Partners crop inputs: Becher, Dover, Eberts, Ridgetown, Rutherford

Terms were not disclosed. It is expected the deal will close in the second quarter of 2018 after potential regulatory reviews.

La Coop fédérée represents more than 120,000 members, producers and consumers grouped into nearly 70 cooperatives with operations located across Quebec, New Brunswick, Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.

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Cargill’s Winnipeg-based Canadian arm announced Thursday it will sell its Ontario grain and crop input outlets and its joint-venture stake in South West Ag Partners to La Coop for an undisclosed sum.

The assets to be sold include Cargill’s wholly-owned grain handling sites at Melbourne, Princeton, Shetland, Staples and Talbotville and its wholly-owned input retail sites at Alliston, Clinton, Courtland, Harriston, Harrow, Melbourne, Mount Albert, Princeton, Shetland, Talbotville, Tilbury and Waterford.

La Coop federee also gets Cargill’s interest in the South West Ag Partners grain handling sites at Becher, Grande Pointe, Rutherford, Tupperville and Wallaceburg, plus a share in South West-owned Palmerston Grain and in “all grain satellite relationships.”

That stake also includes an interest in South West’s crop input retail businesses at Becher, Dover, Eberts, Ridgetown and Rutherford.

Chatham-based South West, whose operations also include processing and packing of food-grade soybeans for export, formed in 2001 in a merger of Kent County Fertilizers with St. Clair Agri Services. Cargill came to South West as a joint-venture owner of the St. Clair business.

The deal with La Coop will not include Cargill’s export terminal in Sarnia, its AgResource crop inputs wholesale business or any other Cargill businesses in Ontario or elsewhere in Canada, Cargill emphasized.

The deal is expected to close in the second calendar quarter, pending “definitive agreements” and “required regulatory examinations,” Cargill and La Coop said.

U.S.-based, privately-held Cargill is among several global grain firms to review its various business lines, step out of other lower-margin businesses and pursue higher-margin opportunities in recent years as profits in grain marketing have come under pressure.

Cargill, for one, has sold off its ag input retail business in six U.S. states to Canadian fertilizer and ag retail firm Agrium (now part of Nutrien) and moved to exit the ag input business in the Black Sea region.

“Cargill continually evaluates its assets to ensure its sites are operating efficiently and are competitive in the areas it serves,” Dave Baudler, managing director for Cargill’s grain business, said in Thursday’s release.

“After an in-depth evaluation of our grain and crop inputs businesses in Ontario, we came to the conclusion that a sale of those assets was the best path forward to remain competitive and deliver on our growth strategy.”

La Coop federee, he said, “was the buyer of choice to ensure a smooth transition for employees and customers.”

Coop federee’s Agromart ag retail network and LCF grain trading businesses, meanwhile, “have been growing steadily in recent years,” Sebastien Leveille, the co-operative’s executive vice-president for agribusiness, said in the same release.

Cargill’s grain and retail sites and its stake in South West, Leveille said, “will be a complementary fit to existing operations in Ontario, which already include four crop input terminals, 16 locally-owned joint-venture retailers and a grain trading group.”

Cargill’s Ontario farmer clients, he added, “can take advantage of a crop input service offering, grain handling, marketing in the region and access to a vast network of agricultural retailers that stretches well beyond Ontario thanks to more than a hundred affiliated establishments across Canada.”

“This agreement will help us continue with our major expansion program elsewhere in Canada and remain competitive on grain and agricultural input markets,” La Coop federee’s CEO Gaetan Desroches said in a separate release.

Paul Hazzard, general manager for South West Ag Partners, said working with La Coop federee “will without a doubt bring new opportunities to our customers.”

Cargill remains a player in the Canadian ag retail business elsewhere in Canada, and “will maintain the operation of 40 crop inputs retail locations, 26 elevator assets, five export terminals, and two oilseed processing facilities to serve growers throughout the country,” said Glenn Houser, managing director for Cargill’s crop inputs business. — AGCanada.com Network

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InVivo, a grouping of 220 agricultural co-operatives and one of the largest exporters of French cereals, has focused on overseas growth under a reorganization launched two years ago by CEO Thierry Blandinieres.

In grain trading, Quebec’s La Coop Federee and Australia’s CBH Group have joined a co-operative alliance previously created by InVivo with Aca in Argentina and Zen-noh in Japan, Blandinieres said during a press presentation.

The network is focused on knowledge sharing to allow the cooperatives to have similar market expertise to multinational traders, but the partners are now also discussing the possibility of jointly negotiating freight terms, he said.

The co-operative alliance, as well as a separate partnership with Archer Daniels Midland covering the Black Sea region, was also helping InVivo to source grain overseas, which was crucial this season after a poor French harvest, he added.

In France, InVivo distributes about 40 per cent of crop inputs such as pesticides and fertilizers sold in the European Union’s biggest grain producer, but wants to reinforce its position as the world’s leading crop chemical makers consolidate through multi-billion merger deals.

The French group aims to expand joint procurement of crop chemicals through Novafield, a European alliance of cooperatives, and develop its own offer via Life Scientific, a joint venture in Ireland based on molecules that are no longer patented.

InVivo already buys about 10 per cent of its crop inputs through Novafield and this has supported a 30 million-euro (C$43.77 million) gain for its farm supplies division over the past five years, Blandinieres said.

The group said its total sales reached 6.4 billion euros in its 2015-16 year to June 30, up from 5.7 billion the previous year.

— Reporting for Reuters by Gus Trompiz in Paris.

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