Agriculture committee  The answer to your question is that I don't know the answer to your question. They have contracts. For example, Rothsay would take all the SR material from the Cargill plant in Guelph. That would be an individual contract based on volume. I don't have access to that information

Agriculture committee  Do you mean as an organic input?

Agriculture committee  Not that I'm aware of, primarily because under the organic regulations, if you're producing organic bone meal, you would have to have third-party certification, as Mike has mentioned. The organic regulations on the food require third-party certification. The rendering industry o

Agriculture committee  Certification.

Agriculture committee  I used that term in the context of organic.

Agriculture committee  If you're a certified organic producer, you have to be under third-party certification through a certification body. The rendering industry, of course, would not have that because they're taking inputs from the conventional industry. These rendering plants are large. Their thro

Agriculture committee  No, the CRA doesn't. The website you would go to is the National Renderers Association—nationalrenderers.org—in the U.S. Each individual company has a very comprehensive website. West Coast Reduction, Rothsay, and Sanimax all have websites with a lot of information.

Agriculture committee  The CRA has three members. Sanimax is based in Quebec City, where they have big plants, and has its head office in Montreal. Rothsay, which is part of Maple Leaf Foods, has its head office in Guelph and its main plant in Dundas, Ontario. West Coast Reduction is in Vancouver. That

Agriculture committee  Are you referring to the AgriMarketing program?

Agriculture committee  It's actually $40,000 a year. That money is used primarily for export development and incoming missions and so on. The industry receives that money generally for two reasons. One is to use it for incoming missions and outgoing missions. But it also raises the profile of the indus

Agriculture committee  Actually, the rendering industry in North America acts as one industry. The CRA works with the NRA in the U.S. We have major contracts with Clemson University in the U.S. to do research looking for alternative uses for protein meals. Examples are biodegradable flower pots and car

Agriculture committee  It's a global problem because the increase in consumption in Asian countries, for example, or in central South America where the middle-income groups are becoming more dependent on a meat diet, you're seeing this demand for both protein meals and fat going up. As I say, the globa

Agriculture committee  Commodity prices go up and down substantially, so three years ago.... Well, you know, they can be quite unstable, but they were still in a fairly high range. I would estimate, I don't know for sure, but probably around $900 a tonne. It has gone up recently to around $1,200, so th

Agriculture committee  I would say the bigger risk is the huge demand in Asia for animal fats. Recently a company in Singapore has been buying up fat in huge quantities worldwide. They were at meetings with the North American rendering associations, lobbying all the companies. So the rendering industry

Agriculture committee  You talk about the supply chain, but the value chain is actually not a linear chain. It's a circle.