Canada’s largest independent apple grower is moving into BC following the purchase of the last remaining assets of BC Tree Fruits Co-op to Penticton construction and development company Wildstone Construction Group.
Wildstone paid $22.75 million for BC Tree Fruits’ newly renovated packinghouse in Oliver, as well as receiving stations in Summerland and Keremeos in a deal approved by BC Supreme Court on May 16.
The transaction includes the BC Tree Fruits brand, which Wildstone will licence to Algoma Orchards of Ontario, which will restart the Oliver packinghouse this season.
“We’re looking forward to working with growers out there for many years to come,” says Algoma president Kirk Kemp. “We’d like to see if we can’t kind of stabilize the industry a bit and give growers some stability in the returns for their fruit.”
This isn’t the first time Algoma has worked with BC apple producers.
“[Ontario] had an early frost in 2012 that hammered their crop and Algoma ended up buying a lot of apples from BC,” notes Summerland grower and BC Tree Fruits vice-president Deep Brar. “They were pretty good to deal with.”
Kemp says Algoma is actively working to launch operations this summer, interviewing former employees and having initial talks with growers.
“We hope to get some people in place and get the plant ready to go,” he says. “I’ve got lots of experience in the apple deal and my facility manager has lots of experience on the tender fruit and some experience in cherries. We are hoping to get a lot of the key employees back who have run those lines before, so we plan on offering a full service of all tender fruit as well as the apples.”
A small group of growers who hoped to see co-op revived welcome Algoma’s arrival.
“It’s probably a good thing that they are here,” says group spokesperson Amarjit Lalli. “The concern is if they don’t make money they just close up shop and leave.”
Kemp says he is going in with his eyes open.
“In the first year or two we don’t have high expectations on how much fruit we are going to get,” he says. “But from the growers we’ve talked to there are still a lot looking for a long-term home. Some were happy with the pack sheds they had last year and some were not. There is inconsistent pricing and inconsistent quality. We can help stabilize both of those.”
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