Robert Irving Dies at 71 After Cancer Battle
Robert K. Irving died Tuesday after a cancer battle at 71, ending the life of the fifth generation to lead J.D. Irving Ltd. The loss reaches well beyond one family: he helped guide a company with about 20,000 employees across forestry, retail, shipbuilding, construction, transportation and agriculture.
J.D. Irving Ltd. and Robert Irving
Irving was the second-oldest son of the late James Kenneth Irving and the grandson of K.C. Irving. He ran J.D. Irving Ltd. alongside his brother Jim, carrying a business started in 1882 by Scottish emigrants into a sprawling maritime empire.
He was also tied closely to the Cavendish Farms French fry business, one of the most visible parts of that empire. Cavendish’s Canadian operations employ nearly 2,000 people and source from 130 growers, with all products sold in Canada made using Canadian potatoes.
Cavendish Farms Growth
The potato business that became Cavendish Farms began in 1980, when his father purchased a vegetable-processing plant in New Annan, P.E.I. From there it expanded to two plants in P.E.I., along with plants in Alberta, Ontario and North Dakota.
Under Irving’s tenure, the company went from selling around 25 million pounds of French fries annually to approximately one billion. Cavendish now holds 44 per cent of the Canadian retail French fry market and is the largest private-sector contributor to P.E.I.’s GDP, as well as the island’s largest net exporter annually.
Where Robert Irving Worked
He did not limit himself to one corner of the business. A company news release said he loved to be “where the action was – in the fields with farmers, on the manufacturing floor, or in transport terminals,” and he was also involved in fertilizer, tissue, transportation and trucking, plus the New Brunswick-based diaper business that is the only manufacturer of baby diapers and training pants in Canada.
That hands-on style fit the way he described the job in December 2024, saying, “The best fertilizer a farmer could have to run his farm would be his footprints in the fields,” and, “In the office, you only get part of the story,” during an Acadia Insights podcast interview.
He had also backed investment in the potato business’s future. In 2009, Cavendish built the largest biogas plant in North America in P.E.I. to generate renewable energy from potato waste, and in 2020 it opened a $12.5-million research centre that funds the country’s largest potato-breeding program and aims to develop varieties more resistant to drought and disease. Irving called that opening “another step to help support potato growers and the potato industry on the Island.”
His death leaves J.D. Irving Ltd. without the executive who carried that family model through the company’s modern expansion. For employees, growers and suppliers tied to Cavendish and the wider group, the business continues with the structure he helped build, but the leader most closely associated with its field-to-factory identity is gone.
