At Lactalis Canada, career growth is a key priority

If you want to know the extent of career opportunities that employees have at Lactalis Canada, just ask Fatima Yumnu.

She joined the global dairy company, the world’s largest, in Toronto in 1996. Since then, she’s held at least seven different roles, often quite varied, starting on the factory floor making yoghurt and ending up – so far, at least – as environment, health & safety (EHS) advisor at the company’s Etobicoke plant. In between, she worked in sanitary maintenance, parts ordering, human resources and various supervisory roles.

“I started young,” she says with a smile, “and over the years, I’ve been able to progress in varied and exciting roles here.”

Throughout, Lactalis Canada supported her with training, certificates and tuition for outside courses as she learned new roles. At the Etobicoke plant, some 200 employees make yoghurt under the Astro and siggi’s brands, while across the country there are more than 30 operating sites, concentrated in Québec, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia, employing some 4,500 people. The company’s well-known brands range from Cracker Barrel and Black Diamond cheese to iÖGO yoghurt and Lactantia and Beatrice milk. Lactalis Canada says its products can be found in 94 per cent of Canadian homes.

Yumnu doesn’t see her experience as especially unusual. “They promote internally, so there’s lots of opportunities,” she says. “I’ve changed my role every year or every second year.”

And she’s clearly getting promoted for good reason – in 2023 the plant was honoured internally with a Canada-wide silver award for EHS. She credits “our team” for the no-accident record.

“It’s like a mini family here,” she says. “It’s a very good group of people. Everybody supports each other.”

There are opportunities at every level. Lactalis Canada president and CEO Mark Taylor was formerly based in London as head of Lactalis’ U.K. and Ireland business. Transferred to Canada to lead the company during a critical period of growth and transformation, he expected to stay five years. Now he’s in year seven and recently got his Canadian citizenship. “My family and I loved it so much, we decided to stay,” he says.

And that’s not an unfamiliar story at France-based Lactalis. “We’re part of the American zone, so there’s opportunities for people to be mobile within Canada and within the zone, which includes the U.S., Mexico and South American countries, and then opportunities to be mobile globally as well,” says Taylor.

In a multinational company, employees also gain access to global insights and best practices, he notes. “A lot of training takes place in, say, Italy and France. So people have the opportunity to travel on training courses as well. It’s an important part of the group’s culture that we interact and exchange with colleagues face to face.”

The company is also big on new ways of working and flexibility, and employee development is a high priority. Taylor says the company spends one to two per cent of its total labour costs on training, “which is a big investment every year.” It also puts a lot of focus on diversity and inclusion and on environmental, social and governance (ESG) topics.

Committed to innovation, Lactalis Canada tangibly encourages employees to come forward with new ideas and ventures by holding an intrapreneurship competition. “We pick a winner each year, and then back the idea with the resources, including funding from within the organization, to make those ideas a reality,” says Taylor. “That’s been really exciting.”

This article appeared in the magazine announcing this year's Greater Toronto’s Top Employers winners, published December 3, 2024 in The Globe and Mail. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.