St. Albert takes over Forfar quota cheese production

In addition, St. Albert will also manufacture cheese for Forfar Dairy which it will cut and wrap under its own brand name, said St. Albert manager Rejean Ouimet. St. Albert will also take over cheese deliveries to about 60 Forfar clients.

Forfar will continue to sell cheese from its expanded retail outlet which company president Murray Campbell hopes will allow it to stay in business and preserve 11 jobs. Four jobs on the production side have been lost but one – a driver – has been taken over by St. Albert.

“It’s a good deal for all concerned,” said Ouimet, declining to divulge for competitive reasons cost of the quota.

“St. Albert will increase sales in the Smiths Falls area where most Forfar customers are located. Instead of going that way once a week, we’ll be delivering there three times a week.”

The quota purchase takes some manufacturing pressure off St. Albert which is always short of enough milk to meet increasing demand, said Ouimet, adding that the co-op is in the middle of a $4.5 million expansion.

Fed up with trying to satisfy provincial regulations under the Nutrient Management Act (NMA), Forfar gave up production effective yesterday (Sept. 30).

The dairy had been producing various cheeses for 145 years. While Forfar will now be selling curd and fresh cheeses made in St. Albert, Campbell said there’s enough old cheese in stock to last about three years at the current rate of sales.

Campbell and his son Ken, general manager of the plant, have blamed the end of manufacturing in part on the high cost of fuel and largely on the province ordering it to build a storage facility for the whey and waste water spread on farm fields for generations year-round without incident.

Winter storage to contain cheese factory waste for most of the year is now required under the NMA and is aimed at protecting streams and underground water sources from contamination.

Murray Campbell said he’s been trying to accommodate Ministry of Environment (MOE) requirements for years but could never come up with an affordable, practical way of doing so… nor could the ministry.

The operation received several extensions allowing it to continue but a new one was not forthcoming. While the MOE has said it might extend the compliance deadline by one year, it’s too late for Forfar.

“To tell the truth, I didn’t push it,” Campbell said. “We’d pretty well reached the end of the road on this. And I wanted to sell the quota at full value while we were producing rather than dispose of it at a fire sale price after we’d shut down.”