b'CEREALS CANADABetter TogetherThe recent merger of Cereals Canada and the Canadian International Grain Institute last year brings together two organizations with a common vision and shared purpose.WHEN IT WAS announced last Aprilsupport to our customers and be strongerAs a result of the amalgamation, that Cereals Canada and the Canadiantogether while providing even betterCereals Canada is now the overarching International Grain Institute (CIGI)market access and market support, saysorganization with CIGI serving as the would merge into a single organization,Dean Dias, the CEO of the new mergedtechnical division of Cereals Canada. All it hardly came as a surprise to most ingroup who previously served in the samestaff from both Cereals Canada and CIGI the agricultural sector, including farmersrole for CIGI. have been retained including Cam Dahl, here in Alberta. the former CEO of Cereals Canada, who After all, the two organizations hadRight Fit now serves as the chief strategy officer of collaborated on a number of occasionsIt was just a right fit. We wanted to havethe newly combined organization.over the past few years, including a recentone organization that can provide allDias says one of the most significant market development project in Columbia,the services to our customers and theupsides to the merger is the fact it and their respective members sharedCanadian cereals value chain. We arewill eliminate some of the confusion many of the same visions and values.stronger together as one team. customers felt over which organization The seed for the merger was actuallyPrior to the merger, which wasthey should deal with on a particular planted about four years ago whenfinalized in June 2020, Cereals Canadaissue or concern.board members for the two groupsand CIGI operated independently of eachAt times it was confusing for customers began discussing the merits of havingother. Cereals Canada represented thearound the world as to who to talk to them both operate under a single roof.cereal value chain and focused primarilyfor support, Dias explains. Now, if a Many of those individuals served onon market access, market development,customer has a question about wheat the boards of both organizations andadvocacy and innovation. CIGIs primarythey come to us. If its about market recognized the fact they were supportingfocus was supporting domestic andaccess issues such as sanitary and the same product and producers. international processors by providingphytosanitary concerns we can answer There was this vision from bothindependent technical support on issuesthat. If theres a question about milling boards that as one organization, Cerealssuch as quality evaluations, milling andquality, baking functionality or overall Canada and CIGI could provide extraend-use. quality of the crop we can answer that 28seed.ab.ca'