Quebec dairy farmers’ co-operative Agropur will start a new joint venture in with Adecoagro, a South American food company, to develop new dairy business on that continent.
Specific details on the two companies’ agreement were not given, but they said in a joint release that their new venture will benefit from Agropur’s commercial and industrial know-how in international dairy markets and Adecoagro’s expertise in sustainable, efficient production.
Adecoagro, founded in 2002, operates farms and industrial plants on almost 556,000 acres, mostly in Argentina but with some land in Brazil and Uruguay. Its operations produce milk, sugar, grains, rice, coffee, cotton, beef and ethanol.
The joint venture’s first efforts would be focused in Argentina but would not be limited to that country in the longer term, the two firms said.
Agropur, a co-op of over 3,900 Quebec dairy farmers, operates 21 processing plants in Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Indiana. Its better-known retail dairy brands in Canada include Natrel, Yoplait, Oka, Quebon and Sealtest and its total annual sales run around US$2.3 billion.
