Canadian sugar giant Lantic, whose parent company Rogers Sugar Inc. is worth nearly $600 million on the stock market, wishes to obtain a loan of $65 million from Quebec to help it modernize its activities on Quebec soil.
“The demand for sugar is increasing enormously. In the country, there is us and Redpath. The plant is running at full capacity in Montreal. There are big customers, like Kraft-Heinz, who have an appetite with their ketchup”, explained to the Journal Jean-Sébastien Couillard, vice-president of finance of Lantic inc, whose head office is in Vancouver.
Several requested entities
Investissement Québec, the Ministry of Economy, Innovation and Energy, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of Quebec and even the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec are solicited.
So far, Lantic has not yet met with the Minister of the Economy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, nor the CEO of Investissement Québec, Guy LeBlanc, specifies Jean-Sébastien Couillard.
$160 million project
The Union of workers of Sucre Lantic-CSN welcomed, yesterday, the appetite of the processor, which wants to modernize its facilities here.
“That would be excellent news, there should be job creations,” said its president, Benoît Desrosiers.
Purchase of equipment, infrastructure, buildings… the $65 million loan would be used to finance the $160 million expansion project here.
Remember that Lantic has been a big player in maple syrup processing since it bought LB Maple Treat for $160.3 million in 2017.
Today, 20 to 25% of the company’s turnover comes from syrup.
In addition to its cane sugar refineries in Montreal and Vancouver, Lantic has a sugar beet processing plant in Alberta. It also has a distribution center and a dry mix compounding facility in Toronto.
– With Sylvain Larocque