Ospringe resident Murray McEwen is one of the nation’s most recent appointments to the Order of Canada, recognizing his contributions to the food industry and his commitment to the community.
In 1993, McEwen retired as president and CEO of Redpath Industries and managing director for the North American operations of its parent company Tate & Lyle.
It was a long way from what he called the start of his career: growing up on a dairy farm in Quebec, and as a student working for the Green Giant Company for 35 cents per hour.
In 1953 McEwen graduated from McGill University with a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture, and continued to work for Green Giant, before being offered a job in Prince Edward Island managing a frozen vegetable plant at Seabrook Farms.
Opened in 1961, it was the province’s largest food processing company and is now part of Irving’s Cavendish Farms.
Eventually McEwen’s career led him to Quebec and a management position, initially with St. Lawrence Sugar.
In 1975, he became president at Redpath, a major Canadian firm with sugar refineries in Montreal and Toronto. This was at a time the company was involved in the search for a new sweetener.
McEwen said Tate & Lyle, the global company that owned Redpath, discovered the sugar-based no-calorie sweetener sucralose in 1976, and worked in a joint venture with Johnson and Johnson to create Splenda.
McEwen was involved in getting approval for that product from regulatory agencies in Canada and the United States. He explained there was high interest in the product, “because it is made of sugar, but has no calories.”
McEwen noted the discovery though, “came completely by accident.” He explained a researcher at a London hospital noticed a white powder on a table and decided to taste it and found it to be very sweet. The researcher contacted a friend who also saw the potential of something very unique.
McEwen added the discovery of sucralose opened the door for sweetened low-calorie foods.
Since moving to the Ospringe area 30 years ago, McEwen has been involved in the community in a number of ways, including the Grand River Conservation Foundation, the University of Guelph Board of Governors and the Upper Credit Humane Society.
“After I was there for a while, particularly with the Grand River Conservation Foundation, you soon recognize the importance of water,” said McEwen. “In my various travels for business around the world, I’d seen many places where water was a real problem – either through scarcity or unsafe water.”
He added, “It wasn’t hard to recognize that more research needed to be done and the place to start, in my opinion, was with students.”
McEwen explained he was interested in helping students get started in universities and colleges. “In so doing, you try to align your passions with what interest they may have. It turned out that water seemed to be one of those things which was very logical.”
McEwen helped set up six bursaries at the University of Guelph and three or four at McGill University (McEwen’s alma mater).
Additional bursaries were set up through the Grand River Conservation Foundation.
These are to aid in getting students educated in worthwhile pursuits – things they can get jobs with when they graduate, he explained.
Locally, McEwen said his wife Eleanor was very interested in the work of the Upper Credit Humane Society.
“She and I were supporters of that organization right from the start. When she passed on a few years ago, she left some money we were able to use to rehabilitate the building and facility in Brisbane.”
As to his selection to the Order of Canada, McEwen responded modestly.
“I don’t exactly know how the researchers for the Order of Canada get their data, but someone makes a submission or recommendation and then researchers find out things about you which you didn’t even know about yourself.”
He added, “I am very humbled by this award. There are many people much more deserving than I am.
“I know I couldn’t have got this honour without the support from dozens and dozens of people in every part of life I’ve ever been in. There should be dozens of people who get these – the people who supported you to get there.”
Notification of the award came in late November, with the investure to happen at Rideau Hall in Ottawa later this year.
