They noted that an “overabundance” of sustainability claims and the growth of “greenwashing” makes a credible, consistent standard even more important to ensure consumer trust.

Deloitte worked with the Canadian Alliance for Net-Zero Agri-Food (CANZA), whose members include McCain, Loblaw Companies and RBC. In “Growing a Net Zero Food System: An open-source framework for climate-smart agri-food products in Canada,” the authors examined existing practices, trends in the food sector, and what will be needed to successfully meet Canada’s ‘net zero’ carbon goals.

A more robust and uniform system for the measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) of greenhouse gas reductions and removals is at the heart of the challenge, they noted. They found that many Canadian companies “… are already advancing innovative solutions,” but also found many of these organizations are also struggling with exactly how to account for climate smart practices.

Many of the challenges relate to data, including trust, data ownership, access to farm-level data, traceability across the value chain, the cost of implementation, and ensuring that meeting data needs won’t impose undue burdens on farmers, the report found.

In the report, Deloitte recommends an open-source framework that could be used by any stakeholder in the agri-food sector, with defined measurement methodology.

“It can be used by industry associations, financial institutions, or industry players to support GHG accounting and measurement in existing product labels and certification schemes,” the report states.

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McCain Foods announced Monday it will put up $600 million to build two new production lines for frozen french fries and potato specialty goods at its Coaldale plant at Chin, Alta., about 25 km east of Lethbridge.

The Toronto-based company said it expects to start construction “later this year,” but hasn’t yet given a timeline for the project’s completion.

McCain did say that once fully operational, the Coaldale expansion will require another 260 hourly and salaried employees, more than doubling its current workforce there to 485.

McCain Foods CEO Max Koeune described the $600 million outlay as the “largest global investment in our 65-year history… underscoring our commitment to the future of agriculture and innovation in Canada.”

The company said the expansion will also follow best practices in line with its previously announced goal of cutting its worldwide greenhouse gas emissions in half by the end of the 2020s.

Thus, McCain said, the Coaldale plant expansion will include wind turbines and solar panels to provide “100 per cent renewable electricity.”

Biogas from the plant’s wastewater treatment will be run back to its steam boilers to offset the plant’s use of natural gas, and a water recycling system will also be put in place to reclaim potable water for processing, McCain added.

McCain’s Coaldale plant was first built in 2000, focused at the time on french fries for markets in the Eastern Hemisphere. The plant underwent a relatively smaller expansion in 2017 that boosted its capacity by an estimated 15 per cent.

McCain on Monday didn’t put a number on how much more potato production it will need to supply the plant once the expansion is online.

A McCain representative did say via email the new expansion “will bolster our existing relationships with our farmers and require us to build new farmer partnerships along the way to meet requirements.”

According to Statistics Canada, Alberta’s potato growers produced 26.81 million hundredweight (cwt) of potatoes on 71,325 harvested acres in 2022, putting it just out ahead of both Prince Edward Island and Manitoba in terms of total annual yield by province.

Southern Alberta’s potatoes go mainly to french fries and other frozen potato goods, processed in that region by Lamb Weston and Cavendish Farms as well as McCain for domestic and export markets.

The region is also home to two major potato chip processing plants, operated by Old Dutch and Pepsico-Frito Lay. Another snack food maker, Super-Pufft, announced plans last year for an Alberta potato chip plant at Airdrie.

Potato crops in Alberta are grown under irrigation, which today covers about 1.8 million acres of the province’s farmland.

Another 230,000 acres are to be added through a $933 million infrastructure project announced in 2021 to be financed by the province, the Canada Infrastructure Bank and 10 participating irrigation districts. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

UPDATE, March 14: Article updated to include comment from McCain representative.

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“Through our shared vision with McDonald’s Canada, we are focused on supporting our growers in accelerating the transition to the key principles of regenerative agriculture,” said Jeremy Carter, McCain Foods’ western Canada agriculture director in a release.

[Editorial] Big food investments growing in agriculture

The McCain Future of Potato Farming Fund (FPFF) will support McCain’s 130 Canadian potato farmers in adopting regenerative soil practices through two rounds of cost-share grant applications, the first of which began in August 2022. The second stream will open in August 2023. 

FPFF and its selection committee, which includes representatives from the Soil Health Institute and a national potato farming association, will assess applications against a list of priority regenerative practices and technologies, including cover crops, flower strips, and low-intensity tillage.

“Canadian potato farmers are excited to trial priority regenerative practices and technology through the Fund’s cost-share mechanism,” said Matt Hemphill, Potatoes New Brunswick’s executive director. “This is a great example of supporting Canadian farmers with the tools they need to trial regenerative farming techniques, with an aim to future-proofing the land and ensuring quality potatoes to share with Canadians for generations to come.”

Gemma Pryor, McDonald’s Canada’s Canada Impact Team senior director, said their restaurants use 100 per cent Canadian potatoes. The fund reflects a long-standing relationship with producers supporting the next generation of farmers through advancing agricultural practices.

McCain previously announced a pledge to implement regenerative agricultural practices across 100 per cent of its potato acreage by 2030.

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“If we don’t change the way we farm, feeding the world in 30 years will require an 87 per cent increase in carbon emissions,” McCain CEO Max Koeune said. “The implications of that are bleak.”

Farms of the Future are commercial full-scale, full-rotation, regenerative potato farms that aim to prove both the economic and agronomic business cases for regenerative practices.

Jess Newman, senior director of agriculture and sustainability for McCain, says the need for new regenerative practices and sustainable agriculture is because of climate change and the existential threat it poses to the potato industry.

“We know that [climate change] is devastating to the grower’s bottom line, and all the way through the McCain supply chain to our consumers,” said Newman. “So, our investments in regenerative agriculture are about investments in building soils, which we ultimately know build on-farm resilience.”

McCain laid out a framework for its regenerative farms which entails armouring soils, minimizing soil disturbance, enhancing crop and ecosystem diversity, reducing agrochemical impact and optimizing water use.

According to Newman, by implementing these practices, they can “de-risk” them and provide a data set for producers.

“Where we have a regenerative practice in a certain region where we’re not sure about the economic return or the impact on soils, that’s where McCain wants to come forward and provide funding and help de-risk that practice,” Newman said.

Looking at the data

On over 160 acres, the New Brunswick Farm of the Future planted 28 crop species in different fields to improve biodiversity and regenerate soils. The multispecies cover crops that were planted ranged from faba beans to brome grass and oats among others.

The benefits noted include: improved water infiltration, decreased water runoff and soil erosion, using different root types to increase nutrients, removing soil compaction, and lowering the risk of soil-borne pests and diseases.

Another practice that saw success was fall bedding and seeding cover crops. Farms of the Future was able to reduce tillage and successfully establish cover crops prior to winter arriving.

The most challenging practices, according to McCain, were livestock integration, rotational grazing and the controlled-traffic farming system.

The Farms of the Future 2021 Growers report said it experimented with livestock on the farm for the purpose of incorporating manure without having to transport or spread it.

“We implemented strip grazing — a type of rotational grazing that involves confining livestock to a strip with fresh pasture for short periods of time (one to three days). Strip grazing allows managing pastures by alternatively grazing and resting to allow regrowth of the grasses. At the Farm of the Future Canada, a movable fence in a linear orientation controlled the grazing area available to cattle.”

What the farm concluded about the performance of its potatoes was that its yields were about the same as the New Brunswick average, about 411 hundredweight per acre. The use of fertilizer in all its potato crops was 16.7 per cent compared to farms of similar size.

McCain is now looking to open its next Farm of the Future in South Africa.

— Liam O’Connor reports for Glacier FarmMedia from Saskatoon.

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McCain Foods announced Aug. 27 it will put up another $12 million to add capacity to its Florenceville, N.B. plant’s French fry line dedicated to food service and retail customers.

The line upgrade is be be done in two phases, one starting in August and a second to complete the project in early 2020, the company said in a release.

The resulting capacity boost will call for an another 1,000 acres of potatoes from local growers, McCain said.

Operations at Florenceville, near the Maine-New Brunswick border about 115 km northwest of Fredericton, have been a fixture for the potato processing company since it got its start there in 1957.

In the midst of major upgrades at plants elsewhere in its network, McCain budgeted $65 million in 2017 for a 35,000 square foot specialty production line at the Florenceville plant.

The company at the time described that development as its largest capacity expansion investment in Canada in nearly 10 years.

Between 2016 and 2019 it also put up $45 million for work on its Portage la Prairie, Man. plant and just over $30 million for its plant at Carberry, Man., about 80 km west of Portage.

Those moves followed McCain’s decision to close its plant on Prince Edward Island in 2014.

In all, McCain has eight plants across Canada out of 53 worldwide, making potato products for over 160 countries with worldwide sales it puts at over $9.5 billion.

“McCain French fries continue to be in high demand and we are investing in a strong and sustainable future,” Danielle Barran, president for McCain Foods Canada, said in the company’s Aug. 27 release. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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“We’re probably only a couple of days behind… we had farmers out on the fields last week and I think quite a few more will be moving along this week,” said Dan Sawatzky, manager of Manitoba’s Keystone Potato Producers Association.

Usually Manitoba potato producers have most of the crop planted by the first week of May. Field conditions are drier this season than in years past, but following a long, cold winter, frost is still in the ground, which has delayed planting.

In Alberta, where localized flooding has hindered spring seeding, potato producers were able to get out into the fields starting Friday.

“It’s wet so we’re having to pick and choose our fields, go around the wet spots. It’s just the start… a lot of the growers are waiting for ground to dry out, but we’ll keep plugging away,” said Terence Hochstein, executive director of Potato Growers of Alberta.

Potato prices are increasing this year, as global and domestic demand for frozen products has rose. Potato crops are grown based on contracts and, according to Hochstein, Alberta potato contracts have increased by four per cent in value this year.

In Manitoba, contract volume size has increased, according to Sawatzky. Contracts haven’t been signed yet but both J.R. Simplot and McCain Foods have released volume numbers which are above last year’s.

Next year, Manitoba potato acres will see a larger increase, due to increased processing capacity. Simplot in February announced an expansion of its Portage la Prairie plant, due to come online in December 2019.

“We do have a few growers or a few farms considering (starting to grow potatoes). Whether that’ll develop into them actually entering into the business next year I’m not certain,” Sawatzky said, adding some growers exited the industry this past year.

In Alberta, acreage will also increase next year. Cavendish Farms is now building a new plant in Lethbridge, which will come online in fall 2019.

Last year saw a poor potato crop for Alberta due to hot, dry weather. In Manitoba, the story was the opposite, with a good crop due to excellent growing conditions and a frost-free fall, according to Sawatsky.

“We had a little bit of rain during harvest, which delayed harvest a bit but I think that also contributed to a little bit of additional volume in the end. We had another record-setting year last year,” he said.

Potatoes prefer temperatures below 30 C during the growing season and for soil temperatures to be 10 C or warmer for seeding. Potato crops are watered through irrigation, so most weather risks are mitigated due to tile drainage.

— Ashley Robinson writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Glacier FarmMedia company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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The German food firm announced Tuesday it will close the former McCain Foods frozen pizza plant it leases and operates at Grand Falls, about 180 km northwest of Fredericton.

The company said about 70 per cent of the pizza production from Grand Falls will be moved to the new Hub production plant it owns at London, Ont.

The remainder of the production will go to another former McCain plant Dr. Oetker runs at Lodi, N.J., just west of Hackensack.

Dr. Oetker said the retail food climate in which it operates has become “increasingly challenging” in terms of price and cost in recent years.

“There is nothing our Grand Falls employees could have done differently,” Dr. Oetker executive vice-president Cecile Van Zandijcke said in a release Tuesday. “Food manufacturers have been facing severe economic pressures over the last few years and today’s market has become ultra-competitive.”

Dr. Oetker on Tuesday pledged severance for the plant’s employees and medical and dental benefits to the end of 2018, plus a $4 million Grand Falls Community Fund to help with job retraining and economic development.

The Grand Falls and Lodi operations came to Dr. Oetker in 2014 when it bought McCain’s North American frozen pizza business and a two-year licence for the use of the McCain brand name in Canada.

McCain had built and opened the Grand Falls plant to enter the frozen pizza business in 1976, and expanded the plant in 2004.

Dr. Oetker, which makes the Ristorante, Casa di Mama, Giuseppe and Tradizionale pizza brands, put up $113 million to set up its London pizza plant and warehousing operation in 2014.

The company, whose Canadian businesses also include Dr. Oetker baking ingredients and dessert mixes and Shirriff puddings and pie fillings, had previously shipped its frozen pizzas to North America from overseas at a rate of 75,000 pizzas per day. –– AGCanada.com Network

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The two levels of government on Monday announced $20 million for the City of Lethbridge for related municipal infrastructure developments, through the federal/provincial Clean Water and Wastewater Fund and Alberta’s Capital Plan.

Through the federal/provincial Growing Forward 2 funding framework, the two governments will also put up $1.88 million for pre-engineering studies and “other purposes,” the province said.

Alberta’s economic development and trade ministry has also pledged over $1 million through its Community and Regional Economic Support program, going toward the Lethbridge Agri-food Processing Capacity Development project and the Lethbridge Airport Master Plan.

The funding for the infrastructure upgrades in Lethbridge’s Sherring Industrial Park follows talks between the city and the province after the plant’s construction was announced in December.

Moncton-based Cavendish, the potato arm of J.D. Irving Ltd., announced at that time it would build a $360 million frozen potato processing plant to more than double its Lethbridge capacity and replace the aging York Farms plant there.

The new plant, expected to be complete by summer 2019, would replace a 142,000-square foot plant that has operated since the mid-1950s. Cavendish bought the facility from Maple Leaf Foods in 2012.

Monday’s announcement was made during the official groundbreaking for the new plant, which is expected to create demand for an additional 9,000 acres of potatoes, the province said, pegging the crop’s per-acre value in the $3,500 to $4,000 range.

Cavendish is one of several major players in southern Alberta’s potato market. McCain Foods has a plant at Coaldale, about 15 km east of Lethbridge, while Lamb Weston and Frito Lay Canada operate plants at Taber, about 50 km east.

McCain in July announced capacity expansion work at the Coaldale french fry plant, to be completed this fall, as part of that company’s “global capacity investment program.” — AGCanada.com Network

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Federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay and provincial Agriculture Minister Ron Kostyshyn on Wednesday announced $380,000 from the Growing Value program for the McCain Foods plant at Carberry, about 50 km east of Brandon.

The upgrades are expected to reduce potato and canola oil waste by 900,000 pounds and 800,000 pounds per year, respectively, the governments said in a release.

The new equipment is also expected to allow the company to add 10 jobs to Carberry’s staff of about 220 over the next three years, they added.

“In order to stay competitive, it’s important to have equipment that runs efficiently, allowing maximum productivity and minimal waste,” plant manager Dean Melnic said in the same release.

The 53-year-old processing plant, which McCain has owned since 2004, handles about 430 million pounds of Manitoba potatoes per year, mostly for french fries.

“We export 80 per cent of the products we make at our plant, so investments in equipment help support our employees, local growers, and the surrounding communities.”

“Reducing waste and increasing efficiency will help ensure Manitoba-grown potatoes continue to be a top choice for processors and consumers,” Kostyshyn said in the same release. –– AGCanada.com Network

CORRECTION, Jan. 13, 2016 — A previous version of this article, here online and in the Manitoba Co-operator (“McCain fry plant gets funds for upgrades,” Jan. 7, 2016, page 20) incorrectly described the $380,000 granted to McCain Foods for upgrades at its Carberry plant as coming from a federal/provincial program, Growing Value, that caps contributions at $100,000 per project.

The $100,000 limit is on a separate Growing Value program, the “commercialization” program. The funds for the McCain upgrades come from the Growing Value “transformation” program, which, according to the province, is for “major strategic investments” and is funded 50/50 by the federal and provincial governments.

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