The blue cow will appear on Lactantia and Beatrice products
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
New labeling will help give Canadian consumers the confidence that the milk they’re purchasing came from Canadian dairy farms.
Parmalat Canada announced on Oct. 24 that it will begin to display Dairy Farmers of Canada’s (DFC) blue cow logo on the Lactantia and Beatrice lines of milk and cream. Consumers can expect to see the logo within the next three to four months.
More U.S. milk will enter Canada as part of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). The United States will receive access to about 4 per cent of the Canadian dairy market.
Putting the logo on dairy products helps consumers build trust in the Canadian industry, said Dennis Bryson, a dairy farmer from Lambton County.
“If we’re going to have food security, then we need to proudly display that products are made in Canada,” he said to Farms.com.
Bryson is a delegate with Gay Lea Foods. That organization has spent “millions of dollars to try improving the use of Canadian milk products,” he said.
Since the three countries signed the USMCA, consumers have raised concerns about American milk and U.S. farmers using the recombinant bovine growth hormone, which increases milk production. That hormone is banned in Canada.
Continuing to promote high-quality Canadian milk could develop a sense of unity between farmers and consumers, said Todd Arthur, a producer from Middlesex County.
“With all the questions surrounding the new NAFTA, it’s important for the dairy industry to get the message out there that we produce safe milk,” he said. “The more we do that, the better off we’ll be at creating relationships with our consumers.”
Lillian Drummond, a dairy farmer from Lanark County, agreed.
“We need Canadians to know that they’re buying Canadian milk,” she said to Farms.com. “If they can see DFC’s logo on the milk, then they can have that confidence knowing what they’re drinking was produced and processed here.”