At the Gay Lea Foods’ (GLF) Annual Meeting on January 19, 2016, delegates approved by-law changes to expand the open membership to include dairy goat producers as producer members of the co-operative. As one of Canada’s leading dairy co-operatives and the largest dairy co-operative in Ontario, GLF is leading the way as the first Canadian co-operative to have both licensed dairy cow and dairy goat members.
At their board meeting on March 29, 2016, the GLF Board of Directors reviewed and approved the first application for producer membership from a goat producer. GLF is proud to welcome Brehaven Farms (Andrea & Trent Erb, Jason Bowman and Eldon Bowman) of Fordwich, Ontario as the first goat producer member of the Co-operative. Andrea and her family have been milking goats since September 2007 and have always shipped their milk to Hewitt’s Dairy in Hagersville. In late March 2016 they expanded into a new, state of the art dairy goat facility with a CAE free herd. They plan to continue to expand their herd in the upcoming year to 500 goats, with the goal of reaching 1,000 goats in 3 years. As a producer member of GLF, Andrea is excited of the possibilities and states “Becoming a Gay Lea Foods producer member means many things to us including the stability gained from knowing our milk has a home with a large, progressive dairy processor, we have a say and a vote in how the co-operative is run, and we have the opportunity to share in the profits made from the processing side”.
