Ultima Foods Inc. is a Canadian manufacturer and marketer of yogurt and fresh dairy products. Founded in 1993 (with predecessor operations dating to 1971), Ultima Foods is owned by

Lactalis Lactalis is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier SA. Lactalis is the largest dairy products group in the world, and is the se ...

. In 2017, the company had 660 employees across the country and annual sales in excess of CA$300 million. The company launched the iögo brand of yogurt and fresh dairy products in Canada in mid-August 2012, and also owns and operates the Olympic brand of dairy products. Ultima Foods also continues to manufacture (but no longer directly sells)

Yoplait Yoplait ( , ) is the world's largest franchise brand of yogurt. It is jointly owned by American food conglomerate General Mills and French dairy cooperative Sodiaal. History In 1964, 100,000 French farmers agreed to merge six regional dairy coo ...

-branded products in Canada .

History

In 1971, the

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

-based Coopérative agricole de Granby (renamed Agropur in 1979) obtained the Canadian licence to manufacture and market

products. In 1993, Agropur's yogurt manufacturing and marketing operations were combined with those of Agrifoods, a federal cooperative owned by 2,500 dairy producers in Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan, forming Ultima Foods. In 2004, Ultima Foods acquired Olympic Dairy, a manufacturer of premium natural cultured dairy, organic and soy products. For over 30 years, Olympic has produced over 140 different products in a variety of sizes and flavours. On May 8, 2012, Ultima and Yoplait announced they were restructuring their relationship. As of September 1, 2012,

General Mills General Mills, Inc., is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, the company orig ...

(the brand's longtime United States licensee, and since 2011 a 50% shareholder in the international Yoplait brand) has taken over as the Canadian licensee of the Yoplait brand. Ultima continues to produce Yoplait-branded products at its

Granby, Quebec Granby is a town in southwestern Quebec, located east of Montreal. The population as of the Canada 2021 Census was 69,025. Granby is the seat of La Haute-Yamaska Regional County Municipality. It is the second most populated city in Estrie after ...

plant, but these products are now marketed and sold by General Mills. Simultaneously, Ultima Foods announced plans to begin producing and marketing its own brand of yogurt and fresh dairy products in Canada, starting in mid-August 2012, later revealed to be ''iögo'' (pronounced "yo-go"). The new product line is, according to Ultima, "entirely created and manufactured in Canada and ncludesa full and original line of products and flavours that suit the tastes of Canadian consumers." On August 31, 2017, Agropur and Agrifoods announced that they had concluded an agreement pursuant to which Agropur would become the sole owner of Ultima Foods, subject to regulatory approval. In December 2020, Agropur announced the sale of its yogurt activities in Canada to

(based in France).

References

External links

Ultimayog.ca
Dairy products companies of France Food and drink companies established in 1993 {{food-company-stub