Evidence of meeting #55 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was ukraine.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Hélène Laverdière NDP Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
Okay. As I understand it, you work together with already existing plants that then become your partners as you transfer the expertise you mentioned.
Chief Executive Officer, Nutriset
That may be the case, but it can also involve young entrepreneurs who want to do something in their countries.
For example, a student from Burkina Faso, who was doing a placement with us, said that he wanted to start up a plant. We helped him start that plant from scratch. He became a shareholder in the plant and now he manages it. In that case, it was a coaching program. Someone from Nutriset even spent a year on site there. A month ago, that young man took over the management of the plant.
NDP
Hélène Laverdière NDP Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
Very interesting. I imagine that the plant employs local people too.
Chief Executive Officer, Nutriset
Yes. The important thing for me is to be able to develop the expertise and create salaried positions. A salary benefits an entire family there. We create work based on the peanut business. We have to improve the supply and the quality and establish laboratories in which the products can be tested. The laboratories then make it possible for some products to be exported. In Ethiopia today, for example, a laboratory established there makes it possible to test millet so that it can be exported to Europe. Previously, they were not able to get the documents that allowed it to be exported.
NDP
Hélène Laverdière NDP Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
You said that, in your work, you use local products. I am wondering what a local product is. I have lived in Senegal. The country produces an astonishing quantity of peanuts. It is not really that far from Niger. I don’t know whether Niger has sufficient peanuts, but the continent does. It is better than bringing them from very far away.
I would like to ask you a follow-up question. Do you sometimes adjust your recipe so that you can use products that are locally available?
Chief Executive Officer, Nutriset
In terms of Niger, 90% of the peanuts we use come from that country. If Niger and the surrounding region no longer have any, it means that there was a poor harvest the previous year. Then they have to be imported. However, that situation is extremely rare. It is a resource that you can find everywhere. That is why we developed Plumpy'Nut with peanuts in 1996. Given that we were looking at local production, we knew that we would be able to find the product.
NDP
Chief Executive Officer, Nutriset
We are working on that at the moment. We do not have buyers for the new formulas because the buyer is the United Nations. The formula is the one we developed in 1996 and it has not changed since. We are developing products containing local crops like millet, black-eyed peas, sorghum and teff. The goal is always to improve the overall business and develop local ones. Now, we need people to buy the product.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
I wish we had more time. I'd certainly love to hear from all the organizations. That was a great job today.
Thank you very much.
The meeting is adjourned.