1. 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
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2. 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

3. 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