LINDSAY, Ont. – Bruce and Sharon VandenBerg have been producing goat cheese since 1989, first on their farm in Lindsay, Ont., and now at a state-of-the-art facility that employs roughly 200 people. Mariposa Dairy has grown exponentially over the years, but its future became uncertain in a matter of days. “It was announced on (Sept. 8) and the tariffs came in on September the 15th. We had six days notice, six days,” said Bruce VandenBerg. In September, U.S. President Donald Trump issued 50 per cent tariffs on a wide range of Canadian goods, including goat dairy. Mariposa sends 80 per cent of its product south of the border, providing private-label products to companies like Costco and Trader Joe’s. The company says the tariffs are costing roughly $1 million a week, a cost being shouldered by everyone from the farms to the producers to the distributors. “Everybody’s trying to take a little piece of the pain in order to try to make this work,” said Mariposa Dairy CEO Mark Anderson. “So while Mariposa Dairy takes a big piece of the impact of the tariff, our distributors taking a piece, our suppliers are taking a piece. And that’s how we’re trying to make it work for the short term.” But the short term is now dragging into the long term, and while the company says it is not quite at a breaking point, it is getting close. “Most companies could just stop and cut their supply off,” said VandenBerg. “But we have 200 dairy goat farms that are relying on us to take their milk.” “The goats milk every day,” added Anderson. “So we got to keep taking the milk, and it needs to flow because it doesn’t have anywhere else to go.” Mariposa gets its milk from roughly 50,000 goats across the province. So far, the company has been able to keep its purchasing volumes the same, but if it has to reduce the amount of milk it purchases, farms would be forced to slaughter portions of their herds. “(If) this trade policy does not get figured out, there will be a lot of goats culled,” said farmer Gabe Benschop, who has about 800 goats. “There will be either firms going out of business or farmers having to cut back.” While Mariposa distributes its product across Canada, there is not enough demand here to absorb the amount of cheese it produces. Conversely, the United States does not produce enough goat milk to meet its domestic demand. “They probably need to import 30 to 35 per cent of their goat cheese in order to meet their demand,” said Anderson. One of Mariposa’s largest distributors is Gellert Global Group, a New Jersey-based food importer that is suing Trump and the U.S. government over the 50 per cent tariffs. Gellert typically imports about US$80 million of Canadian cheese into the United States each year. If that lawsuit is successful, the 50 per cent tariffs would be void. “I’m really hopeful that in the first part of the new year, common sense kicks into place,” said VandenBerg. “We expanded based on a 16-year CUSMA agreement, and here we are in year six,” he said, referring to the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement that was negotiated during Trump’s first term in office. But that lawsuit is not set to be heard until January and the company says it cannot sustain the status quo until then. “I mean, ideally, if they could negotiate a solution, it would be best,” said Anderson. “Failing that, we’re going to need some type of financial support, to make it through this.
