Ontario Dairy Council withdraws Chobani appeals

Friday, June 22, 2012

by SUSAN MANN

The Ontario Dairy Council has withdrawn its appeals to an agricultural tribunal concerning the construction permit and milk supply allocation to Greek-style yogurt maker Agro-Farma Canada, Inc.

The company currently makes its Chobani Greek yogurt in the United States and has a Canadian supplementary import permit that allows it to import and sell the yogurt here. It's sold in 65 stores in the Toronto area and Hamilton. The company plans to construct a plant in Kingston so it can make the yogurt in Ontario.

The council’s appeals to the Ontario Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Appeal Tribunal addressed the provincial agriculture ministry’s decision to grant the construction permit to Agro Farma as well as Dairy Farmers of Ontario’s decision to allocate the milk.

Council president Tom Kane says the council, Dairy Farmers and the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission worked hard to “achieve an understanding and basically a workable solution to some of our outstanding issues.”

Kane says he can’t give details of the solution because they’re still working them out. “The council has always welcomed new entrants to the industry but milk supply is still a major issue and that’s what we have to work on.”

In particular, the council wants to ensure that milk supply to existing cheese and butter plants isn’t jeopardized because new companies want milk for their products. BF