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4 THE RURAL VOICE
Keith Roulston
Let's co-operate. Do it my way!
The message of the need for co-
operation and partnership in the food
industry is being heard a lot at farm
meetings these days.
Speakers from packers, retailers
and the George Morris Centre all
touted co-operation as the answer to
building a
stronger pork
industry at a
recent meeting in
Mitchell. At the
annual meeting
of the Ontario
Apple Marketing
Commission,
Don Rhyno, dir-
ector of produce
sales for Sobeys,
called for a "true
partnership"
between growers
and retailers.
Co-operation
has been a hall-
mark of Ontario farming since the
clearing of forests in the 1800s so
talk of co-operating sounds good.
And in times of rapidly changing
buying patterns, there's no doubt
farmers need to listen to the signals
retailers and processors can give
them about evolving consumer tastes.
But farmers' ideas of co-operation
and processors' and retailers' ideas of
co-operation may be different.•Rhyno,
for instance, told the apple growers
his company was seeking partner-
ships with individuals who know that
business requires give and take.
Don Collis of Quality Packers told
pork producers in Mitchell that: "It's
time for you to pick your partner,
focus and go on."
In both cases it sounded like the
retailer and the processor were trying
to cut out any attempt by farmers to
bargain collectively. They wanted to
work with individual farmers who
would give them a product that met
their standards (and no doubt at a
price they found satisfactory).
In the mid -'80s, University of
Guelph economist George Brinkman
forecast a future of "franchise farm-
ing" and that, indeed, seems to be
coming to pass. What is a direct
farmer -packer pork contract where
the packer backs financing of a new
barn in return for guaranteed produc-
tion standards if not a franchise?
Ontario is far behind the trends in the
U.S. in this kind of franchising.
Chicken and pork production there is
driven from the top down, with
processors dominating the industry.
Having watched many, many bus-
inesses start and fail over the years, I
can see the value of franchising more
today than when Brinkman first dis-
cussed it more than a decade ago.
While people go into business for
independence, they are often their
own worst enemy when it comes to
marketing or consistency of product.
The most successful franchises in the
fast food industry, for instance, are
those that have the best formula and
the tightest control on franchisees.
Loose reins almost sunk Mr. Sub
because quality control in some fran-
chises turned customers off for the
whole chain, opening the door for
Subway to move in and snap up a
market Mr. Sub should have cornered.
But franchising is also a new kind
of serfdom, in which the serfs prov-
ide the capital. Currently, for instance,
franchisees with the Knechtel's
division of Sobeys are battling to
retain some control of their own
stores. Sobeys wants all their comp-
uters connected to head office so they
know every transaction each store
makes. They also have told stores
that if they buy produce from a local
grower, they still must pay a
commission to Sobeys.
The franchisees are in a terrible
spot. If they don't go along they can
end up losing their franchise and
being without product to sell, since
there are really only two suppliers to
stores anymore — Sobeys and Nat-
ional Grocers/Loblaws. Despite talk
of co-operation and partnership, they
are at the mercy of their "partners".
Large companies, be they national
retailers or processors, see them-
selves as the most important link in
the chain. Everyone else on either
end is there as a means of adding to
their profit. There is no partnership
when one side has all the power.0
Keith Roulston is editor and
publisher of The Rural Voice. He
lives near Blyth, ON.