Gay Lea Foods CEO butters up Thornloe Cheese: Southern Ontario farmers cooperative makes entry into Northern Ontario.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: TEMISKAMING & REGION

Don't expect much in the way of major changes at Thornloe Cheese, according to its new owner.

Michael Barrett, CEO of Gay Lea Foods, said their immediate plans are to ease into the environment as the Mississauga-based, farmer-owned cooperative makes its first formal entry into Northern Ontario.

Gay Lea acquired the award-winning 30-employee Temiskaming cheesemaker from Gencor last December.

"We're not so arrogant to believe that we understand the northern market in its entirety," said Barrett.

Right now our priorities are to understand the business and be able to understand exacdy where it fits into the product context of our business itself. You won't likely see a great deal of change in the next year or so.

The popular cheese factory and store is located 17 kilometres north of New Liskeard, near the village of Thornloe.

And don't expect to see the landmark Highway 11 sign being replaced anytime soon.

"Thornloe is an excellent brand," assured Barrett. "It's got a lot of history in the community and history will reign and that's important."

The northeastern Ontario producer of cheese and cheese curds will celebrate its 80th anniversary in July.

Founded by Rene Laframboise in the village of Thornloe in 1940, the factory went through a succession of owners, relocation and expansion at its current Highway 11 digs under the Jubinville family, Balderson Cheese, Ault Foods, and Parmalat.

When Montreal-based Parmalat announced it was closing the cheese plant, Gencor, a southwestern Ontario cattle genetics company, purchased the operation in 2007, and later merged with Eastern Breeders of Kemptville to form EastGen.

But it wasn't a long-term solution.

Barrett acknowledged Gay Lea had been eyeballing Thornloe for quite some time.

I'd say we danced a couple of times but never got on the dance card permanently.

The timing was finally right in early 2019 to begin serious discussions.

As evidenced by Gay Lea's other acquisitions, Barrett said his ownership group has an obvious bias toward farmer-owned organizations.

It's important that dairy farmers are participants from farm to fork and this gives them that continuous opportunity.

Gay Lea Foods has members on more than 1,400 dairy farms in Ontario and Manitoba, more than 4,320 producer and investor shareholders.

The business has made recent acquisitions in Western Canada but is primarily Ontario-based, with 10 manufacturing plants in the southern part of the province.

Barrett said Gay Lea's...