Factory for sale | Laiterie Chagnon ready to “collaborate” with another company

La Laiterie Chagnon, one of the last Quebec players in the yogurt industry, has put its Waterloo plant up for sale. If the owners, who remain in control, have no intention of ceasing production, they will soon announce the start of a “collaboration” with a local company active in the same sector.

“The factory had become obsolete. She didn’t have the capacity to produce more,” company spokesperson André Michaud said over the phone, adding that the Kaisers (Nathan and Christian) remained “stakeholders” in the process. ‘business.

However, the 32,000 square foot facilities, whose sale price of $2,200,000 (plus taxes) has been posted on Centris for barely a few days, no longer meet the needs of the company from Waterloo, in the Eastern Townships, which produces about 40,000 liters of milk per week. For the moment, the dairy still manufactures part of its production there. However, it was impossible to know where the other portion of the activities had been transferred.

The owners are expected to eventually announce a “potential collaboration” with another player. According to Mr. Michaud, who refused to talk about a merger, this agreement would be concluded with a Quebec company that works in the same sector. He also hinted that the company’s business model was not yet defined. Since the beginning of 2020, butter, yogurt and ice cream from Laiterie Chagnon have been sold exclusively in all IGA supermarkets in Quebec. The products will not cease to fill the refrigerators and freezers of grocery stores, we wanted to assure.

“I am not surprised by this news, dropped a source who works in the dairy processing industry. There is a lot of consolidation in the sector. It’s expensive to process. It is difficult for dairies. La Laiterie Chagnon makes a lot of products. It will be difficult to do everything in one factory. »

Recall that the French Lactalis acquired in December 2020 the IÖGO yogurts, previously produced by the Agropur cooperative.

In October 2021, another Quebec player in the yogurt industry, Laiterie Chalifoux – known for its small Riviera brand glass jars – passed into the hands of the French cooperative Alsace Lait.

La Laiterie Chagnon remains one of the few Quebec companies to carve out a place for itself in the yogurt department.

Then, the beginning of the year 2023 was difficult for some small dairies in the province that sold at retail. In Bas-Saint-Laurent, Laiterie Ora, which distributed its milk to more than 300 points of sale, has ceased operations. Profitability was not there. During the same period, Laiterie Lampron, in Mauricie, also stopped producing its organic milk sold in glass bottles.