- President, chief operating officer, Sanimax, Montreal
Martin Couture is passionate about getting the word out that one person's, or workplace's, garbage is another industry's gold mine.
He puts in long weeks as head of operations across five business units of Montreal-based Sanimax, which transforms byproducts from the meat and food industries into materials for other sectors.
The married father of three young children tries to keep the weekends and holidays solely for his loved ones. But given the size of the family-owned business, with about 1,200 employees, and facilities in Quebec, other parts of Canada and the United States, and his efforts to increase public awareness of Sanimax's work, it's hard to avoid shop talk on off-work days.
Martin Couture's company, Sanimax, collects animal byproducts that would normally be tossed out. (JOHN MORSTAD FOR THE GLOBE AND MAIL)
"I've always had one goal in life — to possibly grow our company and increase the value," Mr. Couture says, eager to build on the success that began with the business his grandfather, Alex, founded in 1939. "I look at some of the pictures of my grandfather's first rendering plant, which was in a small building ... and that's always motivating."
Despite Sanimax's role in the food and agribusiness industries in North America, such as collecting used cooking oil and animal byproducts that would normally be tossed out, it hasn't always been easy to convince the public that what it does is good for the planet.
That's changing. As consumers become more environmentally aware and eco-friendly, Mr. Couture is placing a lot of emphasis on marketing. "When you go to the grocery store and you get your chicken, you get the top-quality stuff; you don't worry about where the rest of the product [such as bones, fat, offal and feathers] is going to go," he notes. "We're using that product."
"What really feels good is people are slowly starting to recognize what we do," he adds. "In the early days, when people heard we took byproducts from plants, they would have said, 'You guys pollute.' ... We do not pollute. We are taking byproducts out of the environment and putting them to use."
Through its rendering service, Sanimax diverts animal byproducts from landfill sites (or illegal dumping) and transforms them into purified fat and protein products, serving butcher shops, farmers, supermarkets, restaurants and meat processors.
The food and restaurant industry, which generates thousands of tonnes of used cooking oil and grease each day, has benefited from Sanimax's sanitary removal system since 1927, when the company was known as Burbank Grease Services. Instead of clogging municipal sewer systems and landfills, the oil and grease are recycled into products such as clean-burning biodiesel, animal feed and soap.
In 1990, Mr. Couture earned a BA in economics from St. Lawrence University in New York and joined his family's company, Sanimal Inc., as director of corporate development.
Having also studied at the McGill International Executive Institute, he was promoted to executive vice-president, overseeing all subsidiary companies, in 1997, and became president in 2000 — the same year his father, board chairman Murray Couture, passed away.
Five years later, Martin Couture and his brother André, the new board chairman, oversaw a major acquisition and doubling of the company's size. Sanimax was created from Sanimal; the Anamax Group, a recycler of food products since 1981 in Green Bay, Wisc.; and Bi-Pro Marketing Ltd., a worldwide marketer of premium products and ingredients based in Guelph, Ont.
Sanimax is also involved in joint ventures and is constantly striving to fine-tune its business strategies, to stave off competition from companies such as Maple Leaf Foods and boost the bottom line.
"We'd like to be more aligned towards acquisitions in the U.S.," Mr. Couture says. "If there are acquisitions available, we're looking at them."
Special to The Globe and Mail
