Big drop in dairy demand forces Quebec producers to dump milk
Faced with chaotic demand since the start of the coronavirus crisis, Quebec’s dairy farmers were forced to dump milk this week as the effects of restaurant and hotel closings hit processing plants.
“The sudden closure of all offices, businesses and restaurants cut about 35 per cent of our market,” François Dumontier, director of communications for Les Producteurs de lait du Québec, said on Friday.
“It’s radical. It’s never been seen before in our sector.”
The association represents Quebec’s 5,000 dairy farms, whose clients are about 100 processing companies that turn the farmers’ raw milk into milk, cheese, butter, yogourt and other dairy products that consumers find on grocery store shelves.
Quebec’s dairy farmers produce 65 million litres of milk a week, and less than one per cent of it is being dumped this week, Dumontier said. The industry is working with the Quebec agriculture and environment departments, he added, “so the disposal of the milk is done in compliance with the regulations.”
The amount of surplus milk that had to be dumped was offset somewhat because some processing companies that are seeing stronger demand for their products than others agreed to buy larger quantities of raw milk and increase production, he said.
As well, dairy producers donated a large quantity of raw milk this week — three million litres — for processing into dairy products given to food banks, Dumontier said.
That’s three times the amount they normally donate in an entire year, he said. Processing plants donate as well, by transforming the raw milk into dairy products for free, he added.
The association is preparing to issue a series of measures for dairy producers to reduce their production, Dumontier said.
But adjusting production is complicated, he said.
“You have to understand that milk is made by animals, not by machinery,” Dumontier said, so adjustments don’t happen from one day to the next.
“The other issue is that we have no idea if this situation will last two weeks, three weeks or six months. Producers work with animals, so if they take measures to restrict production, they have to be able to bring it back to normal if the situation gets back to normal in the coming weeks. It’s a delicate situation.”
Adding to the complexity is chaotic demand, Dumontier said.
Grocery stores saw a rush on dairy products during the first week of Quebec’s order for businesses to shut down, as consumers stocked up, he said.
Now, demand in grocery stores has stabilized, Dumontier said, while restaurants and other businesses that represent 35 per cent of the demand for dairy remain shuttered.
Demand doesn’t simply transfer from restaurants to grocery stores, he added, because “people don’t necessarily eat the same things at home as when they’re out.”
Dumontier said he was unable to quantify losses for Quebec, but said the losses for the dairy production and processing industries across Canada is in the billions of dollars.