BUSINESS

Nissim Avraham has

already built enough

ethnic sales for

BO new dairy farms

in Ontario, and now

he's heading west

By Jeanine Moyer

i _

APRIL ? 0 1 1

3 n anybody's book, it's a big num

ber. Nissim Avraham has taken

the lead in growing Ontario's

milk market by 30 million litres

3 in three short vears, and he's done

it mainly by tapping into a market that

many other farmers say is too trendy,

fickle and volatile for responsible busi

ness planning.

It's the ethnic market, a market the

gets dissed as "niche" in a lot of (arm

conversations. Yet with insights from

Avraham in his role as the Dain Farmers

of Ontario's ethnic marker specialist, it

has become a consistent bright spot for

the province's dairy sector.

How? Nissim says part of his suc

cess comes from being in the right place

at the right time, but it's clear he also

knows what he's doing.

According to Statistics Canada, much

of otir country's population growth can

1 /•"--^ f' x j , ■

be attributed to immigration. By 2017,

when Canada celebrates its 150th anni

versary, one our of every five people in

Canada will be a member of a visible

minoriry.

A growing and diverse Canadian pop

ulation means there are new consumers

and new opportunities for new dairy

products. But it also means the new chal

lenge of matching dairy products and

dairy marketing with ethnic tastes and

ethnic cultures.

"'I take a different approach." says

Avraham. ''I don't look at what is miss

ing. I look at what's needed. Then 1 bring

the distributors to the processors."

Clearly, this take-charge business

approach is working. Since Avraham

began working with Dairy Farmers of

Ontario (DFO) in 2008, he has facili-

Continued on page 14

o u n t r y - g u j e 1 3

BUSINESS

Continued from page 13

tated the introduction of 50 new ethnic

dairy products into the Ontario market

place, creating new jobs and new work

ing relationships.

The milk industry

DFO general manager Peter Gould

says it's serendipity that brought Avraham

to his organization. If it was luck, though,

it was along the lines of the old proverb

about people making their own.

In 2008, DFO was in the process of

developing a strategy to better-under

stand the ethnic marketplace and their

part within it. "It was obvious the eth

nic Canadian population was changing,

especially in the Greater Toronto Area."

says Gould, who was introduced to Avra

ham through a mutual acquaintance.

Avraham was a dream fit. He had just

completed his MBA at the University of

Guelph, researching milk demand in the

Middle Eastern community of the Greater

Toronto Area (GTA). He had chosen to

complete his MBA after having difficulty

getting into the agricultural industry when

he first came to Canada in 19S9.

Now armed with his MBA, plus a

broad ag background including a BSc

in agriculture at the Hebrew University

of Jerusalem and an agricultural man

agement career in Africa, Avraham was

looking for ways to make a name for

himself in Canada's ag sector.

At the time, Gould says milk sales

weren't exactly robust. Canadians were

aging and the traditional thinking is

that consumers drink less fluid milk as

they get older. As well, in a way tha

now seems ironic, market watchers also

pointed to Canada's growing ethnic mix

to explain milk's lacklustre performance.

Ethnic populations, they said, simply

don't have the same dairy consumption

habits as North Americans.

With a little enlightenment from Avra

ham, however, the DFO quickly realized

Ontario's changing population didn't

have to be a threat. Rather, it could be

an opportunity, providing the dairy sec

tor embraced it and committed itself to

learning more about it.

"Dairy products are in high demand

in ethnic communities like South Asians,

and man)' rely on these for protein," says

Avraham.

Success stories

The South Asian community of the

GTA was Avraham's first target and he

started generating success right away.

"The community was in need of a real

authentic product," says Avraham. At

the time, paneer, a fresh cheese com

mon in South Asian cuisine was being

sourced out-of-province but South

Asian shoppers weren't thrilled, basi

cally using that word — authentic — to

say what it lacked.

There was a disconnect however with

Ontario cheese makers. They weren't

plugged into the ethnic market, so they

had no way of knowing that there was

a potential market on their doorstep, or

how big it was.

So Avraham attacked the disconnect.

He set up meetings with a processor,

going into their offices with an ethnic

distributor would could get very con

crete about how much cheese he could

sell, and at what price.

Still, the initial response was no. With

their current technology, the processor

said, they couldn't make paneer cheese.

Case closed.

14 country-guide.ca APRIL 2 0 1 1

BUSINESS

Except, Avraham stopped at the

plant's retail story and bought a round

of the company's cheese. The distributor

confirmed it. All that the plant needed

to do was reduce salt content and they'd

have a paneer they could instantly sell.

On the spot, the distributor placed

an order for two tons a week. The plant

is now shipping 25 tons a month and

paneer is its most profitable product.

Avraham brings a unique energy to

the marker and says he listens to what's

needed. Processors now know that when

he speaks he means business, and when

he says "I will bring you the guy who's

ready to pay for the product." there's

going to be real opportunity to explore.

Latin Americans also make up a

significant portion of the GTA's ethnic

population and Avraham facilitated the

processing of another fresh cheese he

knew was similar to an existing Middle

Eastern cheese.

"The trick is to identify a proces

sor that already makes cheese similar to

what an ethnic market wants," Avraham

says. Creating the product was impor

tant and along the way Avraham brought

along a Latin American refugee who was

a cheese maker himself to work with

the plant to develop the product. Suc

cess was made even sweeter when high

demand for the product led the processor

to hire the refugee cheese maker.

It also helps that ethnic cheeses are

often fresh rather than aged and provide

an immediate cash flow. "We are bring

ing a market for fresh cheese, creating

new jobs and providing a new source of

income for processors,'' says Avraham.

"Everybody wins."

Sometimes success is as simple as

understanding the product itself. Avra

ham identified a processor that was mar

keting a curd cheese to a specific ethnic

market. He knew other ethnic groups

would buy it, but different packaging

was needed. Ilia! same cheese is now

sold to five different ethnic groups, each

with its own packaging targeting their

respective consumer markets.

Avraham's successes have been real

ized through the Domestic Dairy Product

Innovation Program (DDPIP) because

without it, processing facilities would

not have the extra milk available for

new product development. The program

provides processors access to milk for

the development of new products and is

designed to increase the overall demand

of milk — and so far it's working.

The innovation program has resulted

in the recent one percent overall increase

in Ontario milk quota production.

Heading west

Other provinces are starting to notice

Ontario's ethnic success and are look

ing ar their own growing populations.

Agreements have been made with DFO

to share Avraham in western provinces

to work with their processors and ethnic

communities.

Not surprisingly, Avraham is already

generating success in creating new dairy

products tor the West.

Meanwhile, there are over 200 dis-

tinct cultures in Canada and witl

predicted increase in ethnic popula

tion growth combined with the positive

momentum that DFO and Avraham have

created the dairy industry in Ontario and

across Canada feels it has a distinctly

promising future.

"This means good things for the dairy

industry,'' says Gould. "It's been a great

three years and there's no end in sight." CG

APRIL 2011 country-guide