International Trade Committee on Feb. 3rd, 2014

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Do you see anything in the agreement right now where that is a factor, where there are inequalities?

[Sven Freybe]

I haven't read the.... You know, I don't know where the details are within it, but in the last version I saw, the GIs, the geographical indications, weren't really spelled out as to which ones would fall or which ones wouldn't fall. That's why I'm not familiar with this.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Okay.

[Sven Freybe]

But that's where there was a particular concern for us.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Can you give an example?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much, Mr. Pacetti. The time has gone.

Mr. Hoback, seven minutes.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here this afternoon.

Ms. Amrein-Boyes, whereabouts in Saskatchewan is your family from? I'm just curious. I'm from Prince Albert.

[Debra Amrein-Boyes]

It's a little town where my grandfather homesteaded. It's called Dewar Lake, which is my family's last name. They came from Scotland, as I said, in the 1800s. It is 25 miles, if I can use miles, east of the Alberta-Saskatchewan border on the highway that goes between Calgary and Saskatoon.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Excellent. I know that area quite well.

[Debra Amrein-Boyes]

Oh, good.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I've looked at both your businesses and what you're developing, and I'm just kind of curious, as the government that's doing trade deals like this, what kind of support you would need to take you to the next level—i.e., “Hey, I want to now go into France and actually give them some good cheese, because they don't have good cheese.”

[Debra Amrein-Boyes]

That's right.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

What kind of support do you think the government should provide, or could provide? The government can't do the work for you, but in the same breath, we can offer assistance in some way. What do you think you'd need?

[Debra Amrein-Boyes]

It's as Mr. Freybe said: fairness in getting across borders, and things put in place that make it easy for us to get through the paperwork, for instance. I know that British Columbia is doing a food expo in Japan. They're taking B.C. products. The BC Food Processors Association is facilitating that.

If we can have access to that kind of help—

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

So just take the burden off the regulatory side of things and make it simpler.

[Debra Amrein-Boyes]

Yes.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Okay. That's good.

With regard to your plants and facilities, with this agreement, of course, you'll have the ability to purchase European machinery. Do you see that helping to bring down your costs, or do you utilize any of that machinery at this point in time?

[Debra Amrein-Boyes]

Actually, in the size of facility we have, we have to buy European machinery. There's a history of small cheese-making in Europe, and there isn't in North America. North American machinery is not the type that we can use. So it's expensive.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

How about you, Mr. Freybe? I'm looking at the cost of machinery and stuff like that.

[Sven Freybe]

Really all of our machinery comes from Europe, predominantly Germany but also Italy, France, and Austria.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Again, that will help lower your costs as you expand your operations to be more efficient.

You also talked about partnerships. I found that really interesting, because I see two avenues that I'd go down in this stream.

Debra, you talked about the McIntosh and cheese. I also think of cheese and salami, and cheese and meats. I also see the opportunities in Canadian companies partnering to take advantage of their marketplaces with stuff like that.

You also talked about partnership with other companies in Europe, taking some of their products here and manufacturing them here. Give me an example of that.

[Sven Freybe]

Well, without giving away trade secrets, we're looking to produce an organic salami. It's very difficult to find sufficient organic meat supply within Canada. As such, while we've had partnerships with local farmers in B.C. and Alberta, it isn't possible for us to get the supply we require.

We've been engaging in conversation with a company that we've dealt with over many years to potentially have them produce for us, as they already sell that into the marketplace, and then to have it branded under our product name.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Have you done anything as far as...? The second part of my question was about the partnership of Canadian companies, where smaller companies say, hey, logistically we can't do it by ourselves, but perhaps we could partner with a meat manufacturer, say, or a vineyard and put together a product package.

Have you guys explored that, or is that something that needs to be pursued a little further?

[Debra Amrein-Boyes]

I haven't explored that at this time, no.

[Sven Freybe]

Likewise. I'd say we've explored it to a certain degree, but the biggest challenge for us has been on the retail side, to get the retailers to buy into some of those strategies and provide a shelf space for some sort of cross-merchandising.