Olymel L.P. is acquiring all the assets of La Fernandière, a food company in Trois-Rivières specializing in the manufacture of a wide range of sausages sold under La Fernandière brand.
The announcement was made jointly today by Réjean Nadeau, President and CEO of Olymel L.P., Marc Lafontaine and Yanick Gervais, respectively Co-President and Co-President and General Manager of La Fernandière.
The value of the transaction will not be disclosed. Yanick Gervais, the grandson of one of the founders of La Fernandière, will remain with the company as Vice President and General Manager while Marc Lafontaine will serve as a consultant.
In conjunction with this transaction, La Fernandière will remain an autonomous entity within Olymel, continue producing and marketing La Fernandière sausages, and retain its own sales force and representatives, as well as separate brand management.
"The complementarity between La Fernandière's desire to grow and Olymel's need to increase its production capacity, and the synergies that will be generated by the pooling of our operations, were the main factors in bringing our two companies together, resulting in a final agreement for the acquisition of this company which has been such a success all these years.
" Olymel welcomes all the employees of La Fernandière and is committed to pursuing business relationships with the company's current suppliers and customers. La Fernandière is a company that has always striven for excellence, and I am also pleased that the two main current owners of La Fernandière, Yanick Gervais and Marc Lafontaine will continue to work within the company so it can benefit from their valuable expertise and skills," said Olymel President and CEO Réjean Nadeau.
Founded in 1948, La Fernandière employs over 80 persons in a 31,000 sq ft plant, built in 2012, that is outfitted with the latest equipment. La Fernandière is recognized for its expertise, which enables it to combine a tradition passed down from generation to generation with innovation in order to better cater to changing tastes and consumer habits.
"Today, this company is acquiring the means to continue growing, and I am certain that the announcement we are making will enable the company to pursue its development and make it possible for the La Fernandière brand to conquer new markets. Our suppliers will continue to deliver quality raw materials, and our customers and consumers will continue to benefit from the excellence of our products and our dedicated service.
"I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all the employees of La Fernandière and to reiterate my confidence about our future as we partner with Olymel, a robust company, the flagship of the Quebec agri-food industry, which will help La Fernandière achieve new successes," noted La Fernandière Co-President and General Manager Yanick Gervais.
Olymel also announced its intention to centralize all its production operations of fresh and breakfast sausages, sold under the Olymel and Lafleur brands and under private labels, at the La Fernandière plant in Trois-Rivières.
These new operations will require an investment of more than $1.5 million for the purchase of new equipment in order to add a third sausage production line to the two existing ones. This expansion of operations is expected to create more than 30 new jobs and triple the volume of products manufactured annually.
The ultramodern La Fernandière facility will thus have all the equipment and capacity it needs to incorporate the new brands into its operations, while continuing to produce and distribute the entire line of La Fernandière products.
The volumes of fresh and breakfast sausages currently produced at The Olymel facility in St-Henri-de-Lévis on the South Shore of Quebec should be replaced by equivalent volumes in the ham production sector, which meets a need for growth in this product category.