Products savoured from coast to coast!

L’Ancêtre Cheese Factory has a solid reputation. Its organic butter and cheeses have long delighted the palates of young and old dairy product lovers alike. Founded in 1992 by a group of 10 milk producers committed to the resurrection of ecological production methods and processes, L’Ancêtre Cheese Factory is considered a pioneer in its field. This dynamic enterprise now distributes its products in a growing number of gourmet food shops and large surface stores across Canada.

Key player in the region

L’Ancêtre Cheese Factory is a gem of the Centre-du-Québec food industry. Well located at the foot of Laviolette Bridge in the Bécancour area, come noon, its cheese counter and restaurant fill up to capacity. To ensure that its products are of the highest quality, L’Ancêtre uses the organic raw milk it processes from several Quebec dairy farms.

The popularity of L’Ancêtre products should come as no surprise, considering the findings of a 2006 study conducted for the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada which showed that total certified organic food sales increased 28% globally between 2005 and 2006.

Managing soaring growth

Supported by a team of 42 employees, the managers of L’Ancêtre Cheese Factory have made it their mission to make their firm the Canadian leader in organic butter and cheese processing. In order to meet this objective, L’Ancêtre invests 3% of its annual revenues in research and development.

Working out of three different locations, team members nonetheless have to deal with the substantial challenges involved in bolstering productivity. Striving to meet the growing demand for its organic products, management has adopted a strategy that will significantly enhance the cheese factory’s production capacity.

In line with its mandate of supporting SMEs looking to become more competitive, Canada Economic Development is proud to be a partner of L’Ancêtre Cheese Factory and to support its growth efforts by awarding it $480,000 in repayable funding under the Business and Regional Growth program. The company intends to use this contribution to acquire higher performance specialty equipment and inventory management software.

Managing soaring growth presents stimulating challenges. The L’Ancêtre Cheese Factory team seems ready, willing and able to meet them since its latest project, which involves bringing all its operations under one roof and calls for investments of more than $1 million, is about to become a reality.