La Coop fédérée and its Olymel and Sollio Agriculture divisions to acquire F. Ménard assets

MONTREAL – Management of La Coop fédérée, its Olymel and Sollio Agriculture divisions and F. Ménard announced today an agreement to acquire all the assets of Ange-Gardien company F. Ménard, in Montérégie, Que.

F. Ménard is a family business that was founded almost 60 years ago by Fulgence Ménard and is still run by members of his family. The fully integrated company employs over 1,200 people and its activities range from genetics to marketing, by way of animal feed, breeding, slaughtering, and primary and further processing. The company has an annual production of over 1.1 million hogs reared in over 300 farms, which represents 15 per cent of all Quebec production.

F. Ménard is also involved in the poultry production sector, but these activities are not part of the agreement.

This agreement, for which the amount will not be disclosed, is subject to approval by the Competition Bureau. Until then, the companies involved in this agreement will continue their usual activities independently.

Pork sector activities

This agreement includes the acquisition of hog farms owned by F. Ménard, a pork slaughtering, cutting and deboning plant located in Ange-Gardien, a pork product facility in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, a further processing plant specialized in bacon production in Henryville, as well as a large transportation fleet, and finally two specialized butcher shops. The Ange-Gardien slaughtering and cutting plant has a weekly slaughter capacity of 25,000 hogs on one shift. The Henryville further processing plant has been in operation since 2011 and covers an area of 70,000 square feet. All these assets will be managed by Olymel L.P.

Milling sector activities

This agreement also includes major milling operations with annual production in excess of 500,000 tonnes. These assets include two mills located in Saint-Pie-de-Bagot and Ange-Gardien, as well as grain storage and drying facilities in Sainte-Brigide-d’Iberville.