NIVERVILLE, Man. – Each year, Canadian egg farmers produce 430 million dozen eggs.
South of the border, Minneapolis-based Michael Foods Inc. processes 800 million dozen eggs each year.
Now, a group of egg farmers in Manitoba is bringing the company into Canada through a joint-venture project based in Winnipeg.
“I think we’re at the dawn of a new era in the egg business,” said farmer Jake Kasdorf.
He is president of The Egg Producers Co-op Ltd., consisting of 117 egg farmers who raised $4.5 million two years ago to lure processing to Manitoba. The co-op has inked a deal to become one-third owner of Trilogy Egg Products Inc.
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It will work with Michael Foods and Canadian Inovatech Inc., Canada’s largest egg processor, to make and distribute products like extended shelf-life liquid eggs, pre-cooked egg patties and omelettes and egg substitutes for the Canadian market.
The partners released few details about how many eggs the plant will require, what returns they expect and how much the project will cost.
But Kasdorf said the co-op does not expect to spend its entire nest egg of $4.5 million on its third of the project.
Inovatech will break the eggs at its Winnipeg plant and process them in an adjacent plant it recently bought.
The company will spend $5 million over the next few years in capital improvements to the plants, said president Hugh Wiebe.
He expects the new plant to start production in six months.
Michael Foods will supply marketing and technical expertise. Executive vice-president Jeffrey Shapiro said the company will begin its work in Canada by testing some U.S.-made products in the market before production begins here.
The co-op will supply the eggs to the Trilogy project. But because of the national supply management system, the eggs won’t necessarily come from the members’ farms.
In fact, there’s a good chance they won’t all come from Manitoba.
The Canadian Egg Marketing Agency is in the midst of working through a very public argument about how many eggs each province gets to produce.
CEMA chair Felix Destrijker said he doesn’t think the announcement will affect negotiations or relations between the provinces.
But Manitoba should not be the only province to benefit from the new project, he said.
“I will not tell you that only the Manitoba producer will produce these eggs,” said Destrijker.
But provincial agriculture minister Harry Enns insists new production for the plant should happen in Manitoba, not across the country.
“If that’s the case, we will withdraw from CEMA,” said Enns.
He believes the agency should manage table egg production, but should not hold back production for industrial markets.
“I honestly believe we can have our cake and eat it,” said the minister.
Premier Gary Filmon, speaking to producers in the co-op, said industrial eggs should be produced in Manitoba because of cheap feed grain.
