Cargill sets up new supply agreements for Canada

Ingredients giant Cargill last week finalized agreements with three of Canada's leading food distributors.

The distributors – L.V. Lomas Limited, Nealanders International Inc. and Univar Canada – will supply manufacturers with products from Cargill's Texturizing Solutions and Sweetness Solutions divisions.

"We believe that we can better serve Canada's diverse and geographically vast food industry by partnering with strong, nationally-focused distributors," said Mark Brewster, senior account manager for Cargill Limited in Canada.

"These distributors have their own unique sets of food ingredient expertise and value-added services to provide customer solutions and innovations for all types and sizes of food manufacturing companies in Canada."

L.V. Lomas has four locations in Canada and will be responsible for Cargill starches, specialty texturizing blends, maltodextrins, dextrins, glucose solids, polyols, trehalose, isomaltulose and sucromalt.

Nealanders International will distribute Cargill soy flour, textured soy, flavored textured soy, soy lecithin and sunflower lecithin.

The firm is headquartered in Toronto, with additional locations in Montreal and Vancouver.

Univar Canada, based in Vancouver, will distribute Cargill xanthan gum, pectin, carrageenan, alginates and specialty texturing blends.

The company has 20 locations across Canada.

Earlier this month, Cargill announced the appointment of a new chief executive officer, effective June 1 2007.

The firm's chairman and CEO Warren Staley will be succeeded by Gregory Page, who will take on the role of CEO and president of the leading agricultural firm.

In August Cargill reported strong earnings for its fiscal year, although the performance of the firm's food ingredients business lagged the year-ago level.

The company's revenues for the full year rose 6 percent to $75.2bn.

Cash flow from operations increased 4 percent to $3.3bn.

However, Cargill said its food ingredients and applications segment lagged the year-ago level, but added that earnings advanced in several of its edible oils, sweeteners, meat and poultry businesses around the world.