Colleen and Dylan Biggs of TK Ranch, with locations near Calgary and Hanna, Alta.

Direct marketing in the COVID age

Two Alberta businesswomen talk shop about how the pandemic has shaped the direct marketing landscape for beef producers

It is a changed world. The time spent in pandemic lockdowns has completely altered consumer behaviour. Perhaps it has sped up trends that were already in place, such as concerns about how food was grown or raised, convenience and ease of online purchasing. According to a recent article in the Harvard Business Review on Marketing […] Read more


(Canyonos/iStock/Getty Images)

Olymel to exit lard business, shut plant

Packer's St. Hyacinthe facility to permanently close

Pork and poultry packer Olymel is set to close the further processing plant it operates in its home town in Quebec as it exits the lard production business. The company, an arm of ag co-operative Sollio, announced Thursday it will close its St. Jacques Street plant at St. Hyacinthe, Que. effective Feb. 10, affecting 107 […] Read more

Andre Fortin, shown here at right in September at a community fair at Shawville, Que., about 75 km northwest of Ottawa, is the Quebec Liberals’ new critic for agriculture and health. (Andre Fortin via Facebook)

Quebec Liberals’ new ag critic to also handle health file

Fortin to also handle regional development, forestry

A quick re-shuffling of shadow cabinet responsibilities will see the agriculture critic for Quebec’s provincial opposition Liberals now also handle the health file. The Liberals’ interim leader Marc Tanguay — who took over after the Nov. 7 resignation of Dominique Anglade following the Oct. 3 general election — announced Tuesday that Andre Fortin, the party’s […] Read more



Viewing COVID-19 from a veterinary practice perspective

Viewing COVID-19 from a veterinary practice perspective

Vet Advice with Dr. Ron Clarke

COVID-19 changed the world. It changed perceptions in animal care, human responsibilities regarding animal health management and how humans will think about their own health down the road. Opinions on what the future offers vary widely between individuals. Personal opinion, level of understanding about issues and acceptance of what’s right and what’s wrong in the […] Read more


(Sollio Co-operative Group video screengrab via YouTube)

Pork packer Olymel laying off dozens of managers

Market unpredictability, 'growth challenges' cited

Major Canadian pork and poultry packer Olymel has laid off 57 people from its management ranks and eliminated another 120 administrative positions, citing the company’s current “market context and growth challenges.” Olymel, the meat packing arm of Quebec-based Sollio Cooperative Group, said Tuesday its affected employees were notified Monday and have received their layoff notices. […] Read more

An international team of scientists recently published two extensive, peer-reviewed papers in Science that offered the strongest evidence to date that COVID originated in animals at a food market in Wuhan, China.

The role animals play in pandemics

Vet Advice with Dr. Ron Clarke

The world has hardened to COVID-19: the many variants, the masks, public isolation, health precautions and the reminders that SARS-CoV-2 hasn’t gone away. Globally, WHO reported over 500,000,000 cases with 6,400,000 deaths at press time. A total of 12,300,000 doses of vaccine were administered. And the numbers keep climbing. On January 30, 2020, WHO declared […] Read more


Internally displaced Ethiopians queue to receive food aid in the Higlo camp for people displaced by drought, at the town of Gode in Ethiopia’s Somali region on April 26, 2022. (Photo: Reuters/Tiksa Negeri)

Acute food insecurity now touching 345 million worldwide

Baghdad | Reuters — The number of people facing acute food insecurity worldwide has more than doubled to 345 million since 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, conflict and climate change, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Wednesday. Before the coronavirus crisis, 135 million suffered from acute hunger worldwide, Corinne Fleischer, the WFP’s regional […] Read more