Ottawa, Ontario – The Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau announced an investment of $1,577,028 to Fromagerie La Chaudière in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, under the Dairy Processing Investment Fund. This funding has helped the locally owned cheese processor increase its production by 25 per cent while reducing its environmental footprint.
Fromagerie La Chaudière produces a wide range of fresh and aged cheeses, processed cheese, organic cheeses and butter for sale. The investment allowed the company to install an automated production line to respond to consumer demand for its firm unripened cheese twists called Déguédine. The increase in the plant's production, which now runs 24 hours a day, six days a week, created new positions in the staff of over 200.
The company also introduced a reverse osmosis water treatment technology to remove most of the water from the whey that is a by-product of cheese production. Before the technology was introduced this past January, Fromagerie la Chaudière was using 25 trucks a week to transport the whey to another processor. The company now transports the concentrated whey with just one truck a day, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and cutting transportation costs.
The $100-million Dairy Processing Investment Fund was created to help Canadian processors modernize their businesses and improve their productivity and competitiveness. The fund helped dairy processors adapt to market changes resulting from the implementation of the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). While the program expired in 2021, the Government of Canada continues to help processors in supply managed sectors modernize through the six-year, $292-million Supply Management Processing Investment Fund announced this year.
Source : Government of Canada