Lino Saputo, under fire from animal welfare activists at his
company’s annual meeting, said he wants the right to refuse milk from marketing
boards based on animal welfare standards.
He said the company was in a tight spot when it refused to
buy milk from the British Columbia marketing board after Mercy for Animals gave
an underground video of animal abuse at Chilliwack Dairy Sales Ltd. to
television stations.
He said Saputo Inc. and all other dairy-processing customers
of marketing boards can only refuse to take milk shipments based on food
safety.
Saputo said he wants processing companies to be involved in
developing codes of practice for dairy farmers and wants regular farm
inspections.
But Krista Osborne, executive director for Mercy for
Animals, was not satisfied.
She wants video cameras placed in dairy barns and live
streaming of those videos on the internet so the public can watch how the cows
are being treated.
While Saputo is buckling to Mercy for Animals, it will be interesting to watch what it's main competitor, aggressive Agropur, will say. It's a cooperative owned by dairy farmers who may be less enthusiastic about granting processors the right to refuse milk on the basis of animal welfare abuse.
The animal welfare issue stole media attention from Saputo’s
announcement that the dividend will be increased by three cents to 26 cents per
share and that the stock will be split.
Net earnings increased by 6.3 per cent to $145.3 million and
revenues increased by more than 20 per cent to $2.62 billion.
