The story begins long enough ago that nobody knows the exact year. “Lallemand began in the late-19th century, though the exact date is bit of a mystery,” said Antoine Chagnon, president and CEO, and the third generation of the Chagnon family that took over the business in 1952.
In the early days, Lallemand sold yeast to bakeries. Today, it is a global leader in yeast, bacteria, enzymes and other specialty ingredients across many industries, including all facets of beverage alcohol. With 5,000 employees in 45 countries on five continents, Lallemand now has tens of thousands of alcohol producers using its products. Where there is alcohol, there is Lallemand.
Lallemand’s entry into beverage alcohol began in 1970. At the time, alcohol makers produced their own yeast. Canada’s famous distillery, Seagram’s, would often call Lallemand to help solve problems it was having with its yeast. Eventually, Lallemand offered to make the yeast for Seagram’s and an entirely new industry was born.
Today, Lallemand touches all aspects of beverage alcohol with separate business units in beer, wine and distilled spirits. “We are a big company with many small business units,” said Annick Mercier, business area manager, Caribbean & North America, distilled spirits. This is part of Lallemand’s magic. These business units are focused on solving the problems within their respective industries.
“We have no pure salespeople. All of our sales staff are technical experts, so they understand the day-to-day problems alcohol makers face. They are not selling products; they are selling the best solution to the problem,” said Chagnon. “There is yeast everywhere, but we are good at selecting the right yeast to produce the desired outcome, producing the right quality and knowing the applications. And our people have a contagious passion.”
Today, Lallemand touches all aspects of beverage alcohol with separate business units in beer, wine and distilled spirits.
While Lallemand is divided into business units based on the clients the company serves, it puts a lot of effort into behaving like a small company, sharing ideas across business units and around the world. For example, an innovation in the wine business created a yeast strain that does not produce sulphur. By sharing ideas, it was determined that the same technology could be applied to beer, resulting in a non-sulphurous lager yeast.
Cross-pollinated ideas can even come from outside beverage alcohol. Lallemand had an anti-oxidation technology it was using for bread yeast. When someone from the wine business unit heard about it, they knew it could solve a problem in winemaking; another new product was born. “Nobody has a monopoly on good ideas,” said Chagnon. “Even when we do an acquisition, our decentralized structure ensures we learn from that business as much as they are learning from us.”
Lallemand also finds ideas outside of its own organization. Although it has a global team of researchers and product developers, it often partners with independent research labs to commercialize their good ideas. Lallemand’s global reach and strength in production and distribution allows partner companies to focus on their own strengths. “Culturally, we are open to ideas,” said Chagnon.
Lallemand’s success across products, industries, geographies and even time is multi-faceted. However, when asked what makes Lallemand special, Chagnon does not hesitate to answer: the people. “Many can produce yeast,” he said, “and indeed our quality is very high. But when customers choose Lallemand, it is not the products that set us apart. It is what comes with the product: the people and the knowledge.”
Although it operates globally, Lallemand is a proudly Canadian company. “As a supplier, we are proud to support the Canadian industry and elevate it,” said Chagnon. “There is now a global interest in Canadian craft alcohol and even the well-established brands are seeing renewed interest in their products on the world stage.” Chagnon points to all of the international awards Canadian beverage alcohol producers have been winning as proof the world is paying attention.
Lallemand’s global reach and strength in production and distribution allows partner companies to focus on their own strengths.
It is with this backdrop of success that Lallemand looks to the future. “We are in the very lucky position of being able to work on innovations in many areas,” said Chagnon. “Research in our health and wellness business, which are exploring the beneficial uses of probiotics and reducing disease without the use of antibiotics, could have targeted uses in food and beverage applications.”
Lallemand is also working on environmental issues. “As producers of micro-organisms, we have a lot of potential to reduce environmental impact,” said Chagnon. “Micro-organisms can be made to recapture carbon or produce replacements for petrochemicals.” While these innovations may have no direct impact on fermenting beverage alcohol today, the practice of cross-pollinating ideas means there will always be new and exciting innovations available to Canada’s beverage alcohol makers in the future.
Lallemand already has products that can reduce the environmental impact of alcohol production. For example, LalBrew NovaLager, a brewer’s yeast made to ferment lager, works at a higher temperature and ferments cleaner, reducing fermentation time. Wine and brewer’s yeast strains that do not produce off-flavours reduce tank time and improve turnover. These improvements can have a huge impact on energy consumption. The explosive growth in craft beverage makers is exciting to Lallemand.
“We want to understand what is going on with projects beverage alcohol makers are working on,” Chagnon said. “We have a team of people in the market who can bring feedback to the company to drive our research and development. Come to us and tell us what you want. We might have a solution from another business unit, or it could start new research and development.”
For Lallemand, the future is still fermenting.
