Say cheese: A profile of Scotsburn Dairy
As Nova Scotia’s oldest co-operative, and one of its largest, Scotsburn Dairy is proud to continue its tradition of operating a dairy plant in the place where it all began in 1900. As a household name in dairy products across Atlantic Canada, Scotsburn continues to employ about 100 people in the Pictou County village bearing its name. Scotsburn is proud of its humble beginnings and equally proud of its growing reputation for quality, according to spokesperson Jennifer MacLennan. “People are looking for that familiar brand that they’ve always bought and grew up on,” says MacLennan. “They know it’s a product they can trust in, and because we are a co-operative, we work together.”
After it was founded as a local means to market cream produced by 32 Pictou County farmers back in 1900, Scotsburn has become a major player in regional and even national business circles. With sales in the range of $250 million dollars annually, Scotsburn Dairy Co-op is definitely worth noting. From its humble beginnings, Scotsburn now has ten production centers across the region plus 31 distribution centers located in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, with marketing representatives in PEI. MacLennan says the co-op has grown to almost 700 employees in those locations and has brought its ability to respect its employees into the boardrooms of the dairies it has merged with or purchased over the years.
Maritimers will recall when Scotsburn purchased Brookfield Dairies in the 1970s and the ice cream segment of Baxter Dairies in 2000. Along the way, this province’s largest co-op has also taken over Cape Breton-based Eastern Dairies, along with another major dairy based in Newfoundland. “I think the fact the our customers realize the we really are a local company, a Nova Scotia company and really an Atlantic Canada company is what has really provided us with most of our growth,” says MacLennan. “We maintained the vast majority of the employees in the companies we absorbed. We’ve got so many employees in our 25-year club and the experience of those employees with so much longevity has really helped Scotsburn grow. That also assisted with the employee morale and the atmosphere at Scotsburn that continues today.”
While Scotsburn’s co-op example has been the kind of blessing that makes them well-known in Atlantic Canada, they’re also known in business circles across the rest of the country through their sale of “private label” products. “A lot of the private label business that we’ve been really able to really take on and extend all across Canada now is from such loyal employees who know the business well.” says MacLennan. “Our private label business has really grown by leaps and bounds and there’d be very few national chains that we aren’t producing for.”
After 107 years, Scotsburn is proving over and over that the co-op model is a good one and pays benefits for everyone involved. Those first few dozen Pictou County dairy farmers would be proud of their legacy. |
