Good morning, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank the committee members for having me this morning.
It's a pleasure to appear before you, on behalf of Fruit d'or, about the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
In 2000, my company, Fruit d'Or, was founded in Villeroy, in the Centre-du-Québec region—a region where cranberry production has developed tremendously. Thirty-five years ago, it was practically a collection of vacant lots. Today, a visitor would find that nearly 70 cranberry producers have set up operations in the area since then.
FFruit d'Or specializes in berry processing—specifically, cranberries and blueberries. The products in greatest demand from us are dried cranberries and dried blueberries. We also produce blueberry and cranberry juices and concentrates. We already sell our products to some 50 countries, so we rely on exports for our company to grow. More than 85% of our earnings are from exports. We export to Asia, the U.S., and Europe—pretty much everywhere.
Fruit d'Or has more than 225 employees. They are the people who work in our plants and offices. If the company's producers and suppliers are added to that count, we are talking about nearly 500 jobs directly tied to exports and market development.
I can tell you right now that Fruit d'Or supports the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Our industry, berry production, faces protectionist measures, including taxes, on export products. On frozen blueberries, in particular, you'll find such measures in Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Australia, and New Zealand. The taxes on processed products are sometimes quite high. Malaysia, a country we're already exporting to, is an example of this.
The United States and Chile are our main competitors. Like Canada, they also produce dried cranberries and dried blueberries. The importing countries already have free trade agreements with Chile and other countries. Earlier on, I was chatting with the people from Desjardins Group, and I gave them an example of what this can entail. Last year, we lost one of our biggest European customers, because of the free trade agreement that Chile has with Europe. We are subject to a 17.6% tax on every pound of dried cranberries we send there, whereas Chile is tax-exempt. As a result, Fruit d'Or lost a customer that accounted for $1.7 million in annual sales. Unfortunately, there wasn't much we could do to offset a 17.6% tax. We can find efficiencies, but there's a limit to what can be done.
Quebec agriculture, as a whole, is a topic of frequent conversation. It's a well-known fact that the dairy industry is very big in Quebec. I, myself, come from a family of dairy farmers. My brother is a dairy farmer. We often have lively debates about opening up markets versus keeping the protection structures currently in place. One of the arguments I often bring up is that we have to consider what Quebec agriculture will look like in 10, 15, or 20 years. Will dairy continue to be the driver of agricultural development, or will other kinds of farming take over that role?
The Quebec cranberry industry is a good illustration. Thirty-five years ago, there was no such thing. Today, it employs more than 2,000 people in the Centre-du-Québec region alone. So I think there's an opportunity for many businesses to achieve success in foreign markets, if as many constraints as possible are eliminated.
As far as my own company is concerned, each distortion or barrier that limits access to foreign markets poses its own set of problems. In some countries, such as Vietnam, we have trouble selling cranberries because buyers don't know what they are. It's the first time they are seeing the fruit. If we go to Japan and talk to Japanese people about dried blueberries, it's a different story altogether. There, we hear stories dating back to the Second Word War. Apparently, when American fighter planes were shot down by the Japanese, a basket of blueberries was always found in the wreckage. So the Japanese figured that the pilots had these blueberry baskets because blueberries were excellent for eyesight. That was something I learned in Japan.
That said, as a Canadian executive with a company specialized in berry processing, I can tell you that the image of Canadian products, and of the wide open spaces we live in, gives us a head start in relation to many international competitors. I've been talking to you about the little Quebec wild blueberry, but, as I mentioned, the good old cultivated blueberry is ubiquitous pretty much worldwide and is competing against mine in the marketplace.
So, having products—