Saint-Hyacinthe, July 9 – Lovo, formerly Nutri Group, announced today the launch of its Egg Industrial Campus, an innovative agri-food manufacturing project spanning more than 600,000 square feet in the Saint-Hyacinthe industrial park. The project has two main components: a new industrial platform to modernize egg grading operations and a soon-to-be-built plant designed for secondary and tertiary food processing.

This important milestone for the company was highlighted today at a press conference attended by representatives of the Québec government and partners. The project is receiving $1.6 million in financial support from Québec’s Ministère de l’Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l’Alimentation (MAPAQ) and is also eligible for a loan of up to $20 million from Investissement Québec.

The Egg Industrial Campus will help Lovo meet evolving consumer needs and create new opportunities for growth. It also marks a milestone on the company’s journey to consolidate its position as an agri-food company specializing in egg processing and food innovation.

A landmark project for the future of Lovo

• The Industrial Egg Campus consists of four major, interdependent components:
• The modernized grading plant
• An egg-focused experimental kitchen and multidisciplinary workshop spaces (R&D, nutrition, recipe development, commercialization)
• A next-generation food processing plant
• New administrative offices

“The Industrial Egg Campus marks a turning point in our company’s history,” says Lovo CEO Sébastien Léveillé. “It will allow us to do more processing right here in Québec, develop new food products, and continue to grow while remaining deeply rooted in the lives of Canadian farmers. With this project, Lovo is taking a decisive step forward by building a truly integrated platform for agri-food innovation.”

Innovation at the heart of the Industrial Egg Campus

The new grading plant, located on Picard Street in Saint-Hyacinthe, will enable Lovo to increase its processing capacity, modernize its operations, and incorporate more automation and cutting-edge technologies.

In addition to modernizing the facilities, the project will serve to develop new manufacturing processes for creating new products derived from a natural, local, and affordable source of protein: eggs. By housing production, experimentation, and development within a single facility ecosystem, Lovo is positioning itself for continuous innovation and realizing its ambition to create food products that are healthy, simple, and delicious.

The Industrial Egg Campus will also include new administrative offices designed to foster collaboration among teams and support the company’s growth. This new work environment will strengthen synergies between strategic and operational functions, enabling Lovo to sustain its development and consolidate its role as a leading player in Quebec’s agri-food industry.

VANCOUVER, BC, July 9, 2026 /CNW/ - Proposed national settlements have been reached with JBS USA Company, Swift Beef Company, JBS Packerland Inc., and JBS Canada ULC (collectively, "JBS"), and National Beef Packing Company, LLC ("National Beef"), in the Canadian Beef class actions. These class actions allege price fixing and related conduct in respect of the sale of Beef in Canada. The class actions continue against certain Cargill and Tyson defendants on behalf of all persons in Canada who purchased Beef after January 1, 2015, excluding Beef Products and Beef purchased from the food service industry. "Beef" is defined as the raw portion of cattle carcasses intended for human consumption, and "Beef Products" means products that contain Beef as one ingredient among others except where all non-Beef ingredients have been introduced through the process of mechanical blade/needle tenderizing, brine injection, massaging, aging, chemical/enzyme tenderizing, vacuum tumbling, marination and/or seasoning.

JBS has agreed to pay CAD $7,498,700 for the benefit of class members. National Beef has agreed to pay CAD $495,000 for the benefit of class members. In addition, JBS and National Beef have agreed to provide co-operation to the plaintiffs in pursuing their claims against the non-settling defendants. The settlements are not an admission by JBS or National Beef of liability, fault, or wrongdoing, but are compromises of disputed claims. The settlements must be approved by the courts before they become effective.

Potential class members who do not wish to participate as class members in the Canadian Beef class actions must opt out by August 10, 2026. To opt out, potential class members must send a signed written election to class counsel before the deadline. If class members do not opt out, they will be bound by any judgment or result in the class actions if they are certified against the other defendants. Find out more at the website listed below.

Persons in Canada may be affected by the settlement and may opt out of the class actions if they fall into one or both of the following categories:

-  All persons in Canada, who purchased for resale or personal use, between January 1, 2015, and the date the class action in British Columbia is certified for settlement approval, Beef excluding Beef Products and Beef purchased from the food service industry.

-  All persons who purchased Beef in Quebec between January 1, 2015, and the date the class action in British Columbia is certified for settlement approval.

For more detailed information and to review the short-form and long-form notices, please visit www.beefclassaction.ca.

Taunton, MA, July 8, 2026 —Harpak-ULMA today introduced the ULMA VTC 840 WD Washdown Vertical Packaging System, a next-generation vertical form-fill-seal (VFFS) platform engineered to help food manufacturers reduce the hidden costs of hygienic packaging—the utility bills, downtime, and operational complexity that traditional sanitary baggers quietly drive up.

Built for demanding protein, poultry, cheese, frozen food, and other high-sanitation applications, the VTC 840 WD combines full 360° washdown capability with intelligent automation, ergonomic design, and measurable sustainability gains in a single platform. Where conventional sanitary baggers often force trade-offs between cleanability, uptime, usability, and efficiency, the VTC 840 WD was designed from a clean sheet to improve performance across all four.

Rather than optimizing sanitation alone, the VTC 840 WD was engineered as a unified hygienic packaging platform that simultaneously advances cleanability, sustainability, operator usability, and production efficiency. "Processors have been told for years that better sanitation means more downtime and higher utility bills. We rejected that trade-off," said Mike Marchand, Senior Product Manager at Harpak-ULMA Packaging. "The VTC 840 WD was a clean-sheet redesign so plants no longer have to choose between a machine they can clean aggressively and one that runs lean."

At the core of the platform is a full IP66-certified washdown architecture that withstands aggressive high-pressure sanitation from every angle. Redesigned mechanical and pneumatic systems reduce both electrical and compressed-air consumption, while a dramatically simplified film path lowers the number of reel rollers from 30 to just five.

Key innovations include:

Full-machine 360° IP66 washdown capability

Nearly 20% lower electrical consumption

More than 30% lower compressed-air consumption

Simplified film path reducing reel rollers from 30 to 5

Smart recipe-driven automation with assisted machine setup

Automatic adjustment of key machine parameters

Real-time OEE and utility-consumption monitoring

Ergonomic enhancements that simplify operation and accelerate changeovers

The VTC 840 WD also addresses one of today's biggest manufacturing challenges: workforce availability and consistency. Barcode-driven recipe automation, automatic machine adjustments, intelligent film tracking, and zone-specific alarm visualization reduce operator dependency while improving setup repeatability and production consistency.

Following its global debut at Interpack 2026, the VTC 840 WD is now available for order throughout North America. The system will make its North American trade show debut at PACK EXPO International 2026 in Chicago, where attendees can experience live demonstrations at the Harpak-ULMA booth.

For more information, visit https://www.harpak-ulma.com/washdown-capabilities/ or call (508) 884-2500. Experience a live demonstration of packaging technologies at one of Harpak-ULMA's Customer Experience Centers in Boston, Atlanta, or Costa Mesa, Calif. Call (508) 884-2500 to make arrangements.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Jul. 07, 2026 — Oterra has announced the launch of two naturally-sourced liquid versions of its popular Jungle Blue and Arctic Blue natural colors.

The two products, previously available as powders, give food and beverage producers a choice of formats to achieve natural bright blues, and a palette of greens and purples when blended.

“Liquids have many properties that make them a powerful addition to applications in food and beverage,” said Phil Cook, Head of Strategic Marketing. “They disperse immediately to create a uniform color without the need for pre-mixing. They are also easier to handle as they are pumpable and don’t create dust when processing.”

The two liquid blues are a further development of two of Oterra’s most recent innovations in creating blue colors from natural sources: Jungle Blue, extracted from sustainable Colombian Jagua fruit, and Arctic Blue, made using spirulina in a carbon-neutral indoor production facility.

Blue is one of the fastest growing colors in 2025, over 10,000* food and beverage products were launched containing a blue color, up from around 6,000 in 2021.

“Traditionally, much of the blue that we see in food and beverages has come from artificial sources,” added Phil Cook. “The regulatory** and consumer landscape is changing and the demand for naturally derived blues is increasing. To meet this demand, having multiple blues in different formats is important for manufacturers.”

ColorFruit® Blue 901 WS Jungle Blue fills an important gap in naturally sourced blues. Many natural blues struggle with low pH, heat, regulatory limits, or high cost. Jungle Blue offers a stable, reliable alternative that also blends beautifully to create vivid jewel‑tone purples and greens.

FruitMax® Blue 1512 WS Arctic Blue is spirulina from Iceland using an innovative high-tech cultivation process that creates a vivid, natural blue color with an impressively low carbon footprint. Located next to a geothermal power plant that provides 100% clean energy, waste heat and carbon dioxide, bioreactors grow spirulina 24 hours a day.

*Source: Innova new products database

**Check national legislation to ensure compliance