Comment by unsquare | Hacker News Reader

Comment by unsquare | Hacker News Reader

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>No, really. In Canada, the dairy industry is run by a single co-op. That means that all milk and milk-based products must be sourced from the co-op (i.e. your provincial dairy bank).

Number of large dairy processing companies in Quebec: 3 multinationals, Agropur, a cooperative, and Saputo, a private company, both originally from Quebec, and Parmalat, from Italy, process over 80% of the milk

Number of mid-sized dairy processing companies in Quebec: 35 mid-sized companies process 19% of the milk

http://lait.org/en/the-farm-in-action/the-production-scenari...

>Getting good cheese in Canada is expensive and hard.

Quebec’s share of cheese production in Canada: 51%

https://www.fromagesdici.com/repertoire

I've never run out of good cheeses here, maybe outside of Quebec it's harder to get your hands on good cheeses, but here it's everywhere.

I'll concede, we don't have the greatest butter, but as times goes on, they'll wise up, we didn't have real fresh creme before, now we do.

>and my local farmers can be given an opportunity to compete. Until then, the biggest opponents to these deals are farmers. That should make you question their motives.

Our farmers and local food producers deserve more recognition then we give them.

They usually come from long lines of farmers and they've lived the high and lows of market prices due to globalization, i don't think they want to go back to having to guess how much the price of their milk will be or if there's going to be a shortage or if they'll be able afford to feed their cows anymore. Co-op's aren't a perfect solution, but the free market is an impossible utopia.

Best cheese I've had in Canada was in Quebec. It's dismal here in Ontario.

Best cheese I've had anywhere was Switzerland. And it was similarly priced to what we pay here for Black Diamond cheese, which is mass-produced but serviceable.

Good quality local cheese does exist, but you're spending upwards of $20-$30/kg. That makes it something you only buy on really special occasions. Given that in Europe you can buy cheese that tastes better but is a tenth of the cost, I have to question the prices in Canada. All things are likely not equal between both countries, but the protectionism can't be helping to drive down costs and is likely doing the opposite.

There's good cheese in Eastern Ontario, although that's probably part of the Quebec tradition.

I think that protectionism is helping to produce quality cheese in Canada. Sure, good cheese costs $20/kg, but since crappy cheese often costs $15/kg, the delta doesn't seem too bad. If it was $5 vs $10, it'd seem a lot worse.

Dairy quotas are currently worth about $44,000 a cow. That's even crazier than taxi medallions being worth $250,000. With such strong evidence of a harmful monopoly you'd think Canadians would be rioting in the street, but it seems most Canadians support keeping dairy quotas.

Oh yeah, the good cheese is definitely not cheap. Luckily, i'm a cheddar fan and costco has a 3 and 5 year old brick for under $10.

Very interesting article about the subject that touches a lot of the facets of this market.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commen...

"Until last May, it was importing cheaper U.S. milk-protein concentrates as ingredients, displacing domestic milk. It temporarily halted the imports, however, after regulators in Canada created a new class of lower-priced industrial milk destined specifically for cheese and yogurt production. The solution is a stop-gap measure, however, that cannot be sustained without permanent subsidies or raising prices on other dairy products."

Then, in relation to MPC's, here's a snippet from Wikipedia

"In the US dairy farmers are protected from international competitors with a range of measures, including tariffs on imports. MPCs however are not subject to a tariff rate quota, so most MPCs used are imported[citation needed]. “The United States imports of MPCs have doubled in the last five years, and between 2007 and 2008 MPC imports increased 66 percent.”[11] The majority of these imports come from New Zealand, totaling $250 million worth of MPC imported worldwide.[11] US dairy producer groups claim that foreign manufacturers using nonfat dry milk in the production of MPC are circumventing existing quotas on nonfat dry milk.[12][13] Further concern arises as MPCs are largely unregulated.[11]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_protein_concentrate

> Good quality local cheese does exist, but you're spending upwards of $20-$30/kg. That makes it something you only buy on really special occasions. Given that in Europe you can buy cheese that tastes better but is a tenth of the cost, I have to question the prices in Canada.

You are quite deluded. Quality cheese in France costs around 18-25€/kg, say 20€/kg, that's $30/kg. Cheap one costs 8-12€/kg, that's still $12-$18/kg.

Quebec has the best cheese situation in Canada by far. (At least the parts I've been to. Can't speak for the west)

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