Lactalis Canada Releases 2021 ESG Report

May 25, 2022

Lactalis Canada, the Canadian dairy leader behind iconic brands like Cracker Barrel, Black Diamond, Balderson, Astro and Lactantia and a subsidiary of France-based Lactalis Group, today released Lactalis Canada's 2021 Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Report which highlights the company's ongoing efforts to drive meaningful change for its people and the communities in which it operates as well as some of the planet's most pressing environmental challenges.

"Lactalis Canada's 2021 ESG Report serves as a clear roadmap; one that embraces our key stakeholders, including our people, consumers, customers, suppliers, dairy farmers, government and industry partners to join us on this important journey and make a positive impact on the wellbeing of our communities and the planet," said Mark Taylor, President & CEO, Lactalis Canada. "This is the first step in a multi-year transformation plan that we expect will manage future risks and reflect the growth, evolution and innovation of our business. It will enable us to take proactive, sustainable and responsible action towards the ESG challenges and opportunities ahead of us."

Lactalis Canada's report is directly aligned with the company's global ESG framework set by Lactalis Group, focusing on three key pillars of impact: 1) People & Communities; 2) Authentic Products & Heritage; and 3) Land & Resources.

2021 highlights include:

People & Communities:
Increased focus and investments in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and mental health supports for employees.
Investment of $2.9 million in more than 50 charitable organizations across the country, including ongoing support for the company's 33-year partnership with Kids Help Phone and partnership with Grocery Foundation.
Partnership with the David Suzuki Foundation's Butterflyway Project at the company's Winchester, Ontario facility to create native pollinator gardens and help restore vital habitats for bees and butterflies.
Authentic Products & Heritage:
Optimization of milk supply during the height of the pandemic, procuring and processing milk surplus available in the provinces in which Lactalis Canada operates, helping ensure consistent supply for Canadians and reducing milk waste on farms.
Doubling the intake and processing of organic milk from Canadian farms.
Advancing "clean label" initiatives to simplify ingredient declarations on products, including the removal of artificial colours and flavours across a variety of products.

Land & Resources
Doubling the use of the Canadian rail network in less than two years, resulting in a 70 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions in transport activities in British Columbia and Alberta.
Implementing 12 corrugate cardboard projects, eliminating almost 52,000 kgs of corrugate cardboard from use as packaging, saving approximately 900 trees annually.

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Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”