This text is part of the special book Plaisirs
Between Saint-Félix-de-Dalquier and Saint-Nicolas, farm milk wins the hearts and taste buds of Quebecers. The craze for the precious liquid can be seen both at the La Vallée verte farm, in Saint-Jean-de-Matha, in Lanaudière, and at the Missiska cheese dairy, in Bedford, in Montérégie, or even at the Lampron dairy, in Saint-Boniface, in Mauricie. There, we have already bottled milk at the rate of 2000 liters per week. More and more, in rural areas as well as in urban areas, glass bottles in plain milk or chocolate milk versions are multiplying in the refrigerators of specialized grocery stores.
A typical Sunday noon in Saint-Félix-de-Dalquier, in Abitibi: cars come and go in the Boréalait parking lot. However, the cheese dairy does not have any fresh cheese curds to offer its customers that day. It is farm milk, another daily fresh product, which now attracts gourmets and gourmands from the outskirts of the village. The artisanal dairy can bottle up to 1,000 liters per week depending on demand.
The show is the same 800 kilometers further, in front of the counter of the Phylum farm, in Saint-Nicolas, on the South Shore in the region of Quebec, where 500 liters of milk are bottled by hand weekly. In a wine carrier bag, a man brings back his six empty glass bottles on deposit. “It’s the best milk, like when we were little!” he says before rushing into the shop. He comes out immediately with six new full pints.
A renewed niche thanks to the flavor of yesteryear
The secret of the success of this good old milk made with our good old cows? Part of the answer lies in the thick collar of cream that caps the pretty glass bottles of all these producer-processors. Farmer’s milk is whole, pasteurized — not homogenized — milk and often has fat levels of 4 to 5 percent. It depends on the breed of cow that produces it, because Holstein, Ayrshire, Jersey, Canadian or Brown Swiss all have their own qualities.
In short, we are far from the skimmed milk of industrial dairies, sold in grocery stores, which is more familiar to us.
The niche is not new, of course. Ontario milk from the Harmony organic farm, that of La Pinte, in the Eastern Townships, or even that of the 3J farm, in Lac-Saint-Jean, have been present on the market for ten years. Without forgetting the Ora dairy, which appeared in 2017, which bottles the precious nectar of the Ferme d’Amour herd, in Rivière-du-Loup. If we observe an effervescence today, it is because farm milk is benefiting from a perfect economic situation.
“Local purchasing, the desire to promote short circuits, the explosion of small-scale processors and the dynamism of young entrepreneurs all contribute to this renewed interest in this niche of fluid milk, explains François Dumontier, director of communications, public affairs and union life of the Producteurs de lait du Québec. Fat has also rehabilitated itself in people’s minds, and we are also noticing the impact. »
The fat is what keeps all the flavor in the milk, and it is this taste that people come for. Either it reminds them of their childhood, or they rediscover milk, because they’ve never tasted it like this before.
In recent years, the market for dairy products — butter, cheese, yogurt — has experienced unparalleled growth, but milk has struggled to keep pace.
“With the exception of the pandemic period, all dairy products have progressed, except fluid milk, which is in decline,” specifies Mr. Dumontier.
Faced with this pressure, which comes as much from its own market as from plant-based products, fluid milk is doing like us: it is reinventing itself.
“To stand out, processors innovate and energize their product. Farmer’s milk is one of these innovations,” according to François Dumontier.
Reinventing drinking milk
The sale of milk in Quebec, as everywhere in Canada, is under the aegis of supply management. Basically, since 1972, “allowed” milk production – the famous milk quota system – has been calculated according to the quantity of dairy products that Canadians consume, regardless of the form: milk, cream, cheese, yogurt or butter. This system has led to a standardization of milk quality and a consolidation of dairies throughout the territory. Small dairies have disappeared in favor of larger ones, able to afford the equipment needed to pasteurize, cool and bottle the liquid.
At the same time, supply management has also led to cooperation between dairy farms, meaning that the milk produced in Quebec is placed in a pool and is resold to processors: butter factories, dairies or cheese factories. In turn, it was important to standardize the product. Homogenize it, for example, to prevent fat and liquid from separating.
But today, the decline in fluid milk sales is pushing producers and processors to find ways to distinguish themselves. In terms of innovation and added value, farm milk ticks a lot of boxes. “As we already have the pasteurizer to transform yogurt or cheese, transform our milk, it’s easy to do,” says Évelyne Rancourt, co-owner of the Boréalait dairy. Patrick Soucy of Ferme Phylum agrees.
The milk that waters her up
Farmer’s milk is also taking its place more and more, because it is a way of diversifying the company’s economic activity. At Ferme Y. Lampron et Fils, established 150 years ago in Saint-Boniface, in the Mauricie region, this aspect was clearly at the source of the creation of the new dairy two years ago.
But if the Lampron family has decided to bottle the milk from its Holstein cows, it is also to add value to their exceptional milk, which otherwise would be mixed with that of other organic dairy farms. Good quality milk, but which does not have the particular specificities worked on the family farm in Saint-Boniface. Ferme Y. Lampron has just won the Or Lait’xcellent Bio certificate from the Quebec Milk Producers, awarded to the organic dairy farm with the best quality milk in the province. “It was the logical next step for our company, which innovates in the environment and in animal welfare. Now our milk is completely traceable,” says Gabriel Lampron, one of the young shareholders who is part of the seventh generation of dairy farmers on the Mauritian farm.
More digestible milk and dairy products
In terms of added value, which attracts customers to farm milk, it is certainly the A2 milk niche that stands out to new customers. “That’s a third of our clientele,” says Patrick Soucy, from Ferme Phylum, where the jersey cows are certified with the A2A2 gene.
What is A2 milk? It’s “the milk of the future,” says Caroline Pelletier, producer-processor and co-owner of Bedford-based Missiska Farm and Cheese Factory. for a specific category of the population. In fact, some people who think they are lactose intolerant would rather have a problem with the milk protein called beta-casein A1, genetically present in some cows. By working on the genetics of their cows so that they only produce A2 milk, producers-processors would make their milk, cheese and yogurt more digestible.
Farmers who bottle the milk in beautiful bottles!
This trend towards farm milk is also explained by the meteoric popularity of artisanal processors. Between 2002 and 2020, companies processing less than one million liters of milk per year rose from 34 to 58.
“As soon as the producer-processor concept appeared in the 1990s, when producers wanted to process the milk from their farms themselves, Les Producteurs de lait du Québec adapted milk marketing agreements,” explains the director of communications and public affairs, François Dumontier. This movement, combined with that brought about by the appearance of organic milk, laid the foundations for the artisanal production of drinking milk. That’s how you develop niche markets. »
Then there was a ripple effect. It was Caroline Pelletier who encouraged Évelyne Rancourt to bottle her milk. Both launched their parallel processing plant project. “Making milk was not part of our plan at the beginning, says Évelyne Rancourt, from Boréalait. But that’s what put us on the line map ! »
Two months before the official opening of her brand new, beautiful, artisanal dairy project attached to the family farm, the entrepreneur published on social networks the work done by her graphic designer on the future bottle of milk. “It was so beautiful,” she says. It was madness! In time to say it, Boréalait has quintupled its fans on its Facebook page. “Everyone was contacting us for milk, but we weren’t even open yet! she recalls.
Luckily, no one died of their thirst for milk while waiting. And although it is a niche market, this spontaneous demand testifies to the fact that there is a need and a demand for free-range milk.