Nutri Group, a farmer-owned egg-grading company, has bought
a site in Kitchener.
It’s the company’s third site and will be in the back yard
of L.H. Gray & Son Ltd.’s plant at Listowel.
Gray and Burnbrae Farms Ltd., which together account for
about 90 per cent market share, once conspired to try to keep Nutri Group out
of Ontario.
They corresponded, according to e-mails involved in court
action, to try to buy Svante Lind’s Best Choice Eggs at Blackstock, fearing
that Nutri Oeuf would buy it and vie for the lucrative Toronto market.
As matters turned out, Burnbrae dropped its bid to buy Best
Choice and it ended up, a few years later in the midst of litigation, as part
of Nutri Group.
Lind sued Burnbrae, accusing it of sharing confidential
information with Gray before it backed out of the deal.
Burnbrae has been allowed out of the case by a judge who
said Lind’s lawyer, Donald Good, failed to seek Burnbrae documents in a timely
fashion.
Lind’s conspiracy case against Gray and the Egg Farmers of
Ontario marketing board remains active.
One of the related issues is an accusation that Mary Jean
McFall, one of Joe Hudson’s daughters and potential heir to Burnbrae, committed
perjury related to the disclosure of confidential information to Gray. She is now chief of staff for federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay,.
Two judges have ruled that there’s not enough prospect of a
perjury conviction, but that is now under appeal.
It’s in the context of all this that Nutri Group is emerging
as a serious competitor to Burnbrae and Gray.
