Loblaws reports two profit figures

 

Depending on how it’s counted, either Loblaws profits declined or increased in its fourth quarter.

Without a charge to account for uncashed PC Optimum points, profits increased from $630 to $669 million, but with the charge profits declined to $541 million.

Fourth-quarter revenues increased by 2.9 per cent to $14.9 billion.

For the full year, Loblaw’s revenue increased by 2.5 per cent to approximately $61-billion. 

Net earnings increased to nearly $2.2-billion compared with nearly $2.1-billion in fiscal 2023. 

The company announced it plans to open 80 new stores this year, 50 of them discount stores.

Van Osch farms wins environment award

 (left to right): Craig McLaughlin, BFO President; Kurt Van Osch; Carson Burtwistle, RBC; Brendon Van Osch

 

Van Osch Farms has been chosen winner of this year’s Environmental Stewardship Award sponsored by the RBC Royal Bank and given by Beef Farmers of Ontario.

Van Osch Farms is run by Fred, Gerald, Brendon and Kurt Osch in Middlesex County.

They have a feedlot that can hold 11,500 cattle in barns with natural light and ventilation and integrated technologies such as recirculating water bowls to eliminate hydro use.

They also use solar powered cameras to monitor feed bunks and minimize feed waste. Forty per cent of the feed ration is by-product ingredients.

“Our farm is founded on the core principle that the land is our most precious resource, and that fits well with our certification with the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef through the Ontario Corn Fed Beef Quality Assurance Program,” said Brendon Van Osch.

 

“We take the sustainability of our farm very seriously and utilize farming practices that ensure the soil and the natural environment are protected for our future generation.”

Van Osch Farms has projects and land use practices with Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority including planting more than 1,000 trees on their farms. This includes establishing multi-species perimeter shelterbelts at two of their large barns and planting a naturalized buffer around a pond and wetland. Shelter areas have also created homes for many species of wildlife such as deer, coyotes, rabbits. and birds.

“Van Osch Farms has adopted cover cropping as standard practice, planting hundreds of acres in cover crops each year,” said Ian Jean, Forestry and Stewardship Specialist for the Ausable Bayfield

Conservation Authority. 

Brandon Van Osch said “we know that the most productive land is the land that has something alive on it. This is why we utilize

cover crops between our regular cropping seasons to feed our second most important livestock - the critters that call our soil home.”

The Van Osch family has plans to open an on-farm retail store this summer and currently offers beefthrough online sales.

Two more people get bird flu

 

Two more people have been infected by highly-pathogenic avian influenza, one a poultry farm worker in Ohio, the other a woman in Wyoming who kept a backyard flock. She has other medical challenges and is in hospital.

The poultry worker in Ohio is employed by a Mercer County farm that has lost more than five million birds to avian flu.

U.S. aid cuts hit Canadian Foodgrains Bank

United States President Donald Trump’s cut to food aid has impacted a number of overseas projects supported by the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.

“Cutting aid in the way it’s been cut is going to cost tens of thousands of lives,” said Andy Harrington, executive director of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.

He said it is impacting some projects that are funded both by US AID and the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.

Trump put a 90-day freeze on funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development — the agency responsible for foreign aid, including funding humanitarian organizations.

“What we can do will be a drop in the bucket, to be honest, but we do want to keep our programs running,” Harrington said.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has said that he will cut “wasteful foreign aid” and not allow funding to go to “dictators, terrorists and multinational bureaucracies, the Canadian Press reported. Poilievre said he would use the money for defense.

Canada spent $11.3 billion on international aid in 2023.

Palm Bite date squares on recall

 

Palm Bite date squares are being recalled because Canadian Food Inspection testing detected salmonella food-poisoning bacteria.

This recall is linked to an earlier recall of Al-Watan tahini.

There have been no reports of illness related to the date squares, the CFIA said.

The recall is limited to Ontario.

Wild boar sightings decline

The public caught sight of no Eurasian wild boars last year reported the Ministry of Natural Resources.

Despite the decline in sightings, the ministry is urging continued monitoring because the invasive pigs are quite destructive of fields and forests.

Between Apr. 1, 2023 and Mar. 31, 2024, the ministry conducted investigated 35 sites, the same as the year before..

A total of 109 reports were received, 87 of which were determined to be “unique moderate or high confidence wild pig sightings.”

No Eurasian wild boar were confirmed during the 2023-24 reporting period. Three per cent of sightings were confirmed to be Eurasian wild boar in 2022-23.

Hunting Eurasian boar is prohibited because the pigs hide if hunted and become harder to identify, enabling them to breed, reported freelance reporter Matt McIntosh.

The Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters reports studies from the United States that show 70 per cent of a wild pig population has to be killed just to keep it from growing. This number is “rarely if ever achieved.”

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture participated in the consultation period prior to the establishment of the province’s wild pig management strategy which included the prohibition of hunting.

Swiss Chalet nuggets on recall

 

Swiss Chalet chicken nuggets are under a national recall because of pieces of bone in the nuggets.

The recall was posted by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

The recall was issued by the company after an injury.