Robert Coallier, CEO of Agropur, said that the co-op with the brand names of Logo yoghurt and Oka cheese earned almost half of its €3.78bn (Can $5.9bn) turnover last year from the US.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) signed earlier this year is giving dairy processors an extra incentive to achieve growth outside Canada, which still operates a milk quota regime and imposes tariffs on most imported dairy products.

Under the new agreement dairy companies from the EU, NZ and US, together with other countries, will gain access to an additional 5.5% of the Canadian dairy market.

Agro, with its headquarters in Quebec, is owned by 3,400 dairy farmers in Canada. The co-op bought Davisco, a private US dairy, in 2014 and has gone on to create a war chest after raising €192m (Can $300m) by issuing preferential shares to institutional investors.

Saputo, which also operates in Australia and Argentina, already entered US dairy processing when it purchased Morningstar, a division of Dean Foods, in 2013, and has plans to increase its US presence when the opportunity presents itself.

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