Kingston, Ont. baby formula maker signs deal with goat farmers in Ontario, Quebec

A Kingston, Ont., baby formula maker has finalized a deal with goat farmers in Ontario and Quebec to get a steady supply of one of its main ingredients.

The deal will supply goat’s milk to the Canada Royal Milk plant.

Canada Royal Milk and the Ontario Goat Dairy Cooperative struck a long-term partnership for product supply.

The company also signed the same agreement with the Producteurs de lait de chèvre du Québec, the goat dairy organization in Quebec.

These deals will likely see expansion in the future for one of Kingston’s largest manufacturers.

“You want to take the milk both from Ontario and Quebec. This is a very good start. Once we start to collect the goat milk from these two parts, we will keep collecting and develop the volume every year,” Canada Royal Milk General Manager, Chenggang Han said.

Canada Royal Milk currently employs 160 people, and once they ramp up to full capacity, 250 employees will be working at the factory.

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The facility is currently only running one of its production lines but plans to get the second one going soon.

“With the second line running, we will recruit more people, and for the farmers of these two provinces, the same. We will take their surplus milk to make annual growth possible. So they will hire more people for their farms as well,” Han said.

As part of the agreement, Canada Royal Milk has agreed to take on the surplus milk from goat farmers to make it into powdered baby formula.

Goats have a seasonal milk production period, and since the demand stays the same the whole year it leaves goat farmers with a surplus of milk.

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“That surplus milk is hard for our co-op to broker. With the capacity that they have here in Kingston to dry this milk and make it into a new product, that’s really going to be a game-changer,” said René Zoller, Chair of the Board of Directors, Ontario Dairy Goat Co-operative.

Canada Royal Milk expects the demand for goat milk to increase over the next five years, and with these new partnerships, they feel ready to meet that demand.