In the wake of an Ontario Farmer story about egg grading, people are coming forward with concerns they have with operations at the Egg Farmers of Ontario marketing board.
Mark Beaven, head of enforcement for the board until he quit two and a half years ago, said “my concern has always been the producer.”
He would not comment on his reasons for quitting.
Jackie Pierce, head of industrial procurement, left at the end of October, 2010, uncomfortable about some of the things she saw happening at the board.
She said it appeared that general manager Harry Pelissero was being unfair to Sweda Farms Ltd., and its Best Choice Eggs operations.
For example, when she was handling the file, whenever a Sweda Farms shipment of supplementary-egg-permit eggs from the United States arrived at the border, she would provide authorization to let it come in.
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| Harry Pelissero |
Pelissero intervened last year to personally handle all Sweda matters and then its shipments would sit at the border for two or three days, awaiting Pelissero’s response.
Pierce said that Sweda often complained about the poor quality of eggs shipped from other Ontario egg graders. Her job was to find eggs if and when an application for a supplementary import permit was filed with the federal Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT).
DFAIT would, in turn, ask Egg Farmers of Canada (the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency) whether eggs could be found in Canada to fill the demand and the national agency would pass that down from to the Ontario board where it would become Pierce’s challenge to find eggs to fill the demand.
Pierce said Sweda’s complaints were often justified by federal inspectors called in to verify the grade and wholesomeness of the eggs supplied by other grading stations. In Ontario, that usually means either L.H. Gray and Son Ltd. or Burnbrae Farms Ltd. because they together account for more than 90 per cent of the Ontario market.
She said she recalls one Sweda Farms Ltd. order for Grade A Small eggs. The eggs they got were Mediums. Pierce confirmed that the egg board paid L.H. Gray and Son Ltd. the going price differential at the time between Grade A Small and Grade A Medium.
“I saw invoices for fibre packaging,” she said. There are allegations that the egg board paid Gray for plywood for a shipment of eggs to Sweda Farms.
Lind did notify the egg board that he noticed U.S. plywood in one shipment and questioned how it could be re-used, given Canadian Food Inspection Agency regulations against re-use, and questioned whether the eggs in that shipment came from the U.S. And he said in subsequent requests that were to be filled by Canadian eggs that he get the grade and quality of eggs specified, not a different size or quality.
That Lind correspondence is in court files in Oshawa.
Sweda and its owner Svante Lind, have filed lawsuits against Gray, Burnbrae and the Ontario egg board, essentially charging that they have conspired to drive Sweda out of the Ontario egg-grading business.
Dianne Benedetti objected to orders from Pelissero to change numbers in a report to the national agency. The effect of the change would have reduced, or eliminated, over-marketing penalties (liquidated damages) the national agency would have required from Ontario. When Benedetti refused, Pelissero ordered her supervisor to fire her. He didn’t. However, in 2007, Benedetti voluntarily left the board.
“I really miss the producers,” she said, “but I’m glad all this stuff is finally coming out.”
