SASKATOON – The orange-colored margarine forced on manufacturers in Ontario was so disgusting that oilseed officials couldn’t even convince their staff to use it.
“Its eye appeal was horrendous,” said Fred Geworsky, manager of sales administration for Canbra Foods in Lethbridge.
Now that the legislation forcing oilseed producers to make their margarine bone-colored or orange has been dropped, Geworsky is hoping to pick up a few more customers, including company employees.
At the beginning of the year, Ontario said it was no longer illegal to sell margarine that is the pale yellow color most consumers associate with butter.
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It wasn’t the years of lobbying by the oilseed industry that finally brought down the barrier, but new terms under the North American Free Trade Agreement, said Doug Sparks, president of the Institute of Edible Oil Foods, in Toronto.
Under the free trade agreement, Americans are allowed to send 4,500 tonnes of margarine across the border into Canada. That is only about three percent of national consumption, but it still equals about 200 tractor trailer loads.
“Two hundred tractor trailer loads is a lot of margarine,” said Sparks, also of Canamera Foods.
He said the Ontario government probably realized it would be impossible to police the color of margarine coming into the province once the American border was opened to greater flow.
Sparks said allowing butter-colored margarine into the province won’t make a great deal of difference to the acres of oilseed grown, but it will allow companies producing margarine to streamline their factories.
Quebec is the only province left to ban butter-colored margarine.
