“Those days before social media, my parents would follow a tip they heard from somebody at work or one of the neighbours about a food truck parked on the side of the highway in a little town just half an hour out of Ottawa,” he told Manitoba Potato Production Days attendees in late January.

“We’d hop in the car, go for a drive and, if we couldn’t find it, we still had our favourites, so either way we always ended with a nice steaming box of french fries from a food truck. What a great experience that was.”

Sgabellone’s parents had recently immigrated from Italy, a culture known for durum-based pasta. But when they discovered fries, they got hooked on the potato.

Representatives from the potato industry descended on Brandon Jan. 23-25 for the annual production conference.

North Americans eat a lot of the tuber. From restaurant entrees to snack food manufacturers like Old Dutch and Tomahawk to the friers of McCain Foods or McDonald’s, potatoes are a key ingredient for the food service industry.

“The french fry is the number one food item served in Canada, same thing in the U.S.,” Sgabellone said. “Burgers are number two, and that’s a distant second. About 13 per cent of all food service meals includes a serving of french fries.”

Circana’s data suggests that Canadians ate 1.2 billion orders of french fries last year, up nine per cent from the previous year.

Pandemic recovery

Sgabellone was a keynote speaker at this year’s Manitoba Potato Production Days, covering food service trends and what they mean for the local potato market.

His employer, Circana, originates from a merger between two research companies: IRI, that once studied Canadian habits in the grocery store, and the NPD Group, covering the food service industry.

The company now uses data from an online survey, where Canadians self-report what they ate in restaurants, and has become a leading advisor on food service consumer behaviour.

“We are the who, what, where, why and how much of the restaurant business in Canada and in 11 other countries around the world.” Sgabellone said. “We’ve got a sample size of 150,000 surveys complete every year, so a lot of robust sample to go on.”

Their data shows the hit to restaurants during the pandemic.

In six previous years of restaurant visits, the number of people patronizing restaurants at the start of 2020 showed a gentle increase of one to three per cent over baseline. That reflects “organic growth that you would expect in a mature restaurant market like Canada, where the growth in restaurant visits pretty much aligns with the population growth in the country,” he said.

Then COVID-19 hit. The trendline took an abrupt dive, losing both a quarter of restaurant visits and 30 per cent of sales in 2020.

Potato growers were already facing fallout by spring of that year. Manitoba’s major contractors, McCain and J.R. Simplot, both cut contracted acres. It was a dose of cold water for growers, who had expected expansions. The United Potato Growers of Canada reported an initial 40 per cent plunge in french fry sales in 2020.

As the year progressed, processors imported potatoes to make up for gaps in local supply. Poor growing conditions reduced Manitoba’s potato yields in 2020 by about 15 per cent.

“It was a tragic year, totally unprecedented in food service in all of our lives,” Sgabellone said. “But let’s focus on the recovery period now.”

There has been double-digit percentage growth in restaurant visits since March of 2021, he noted.

“Canadians love their restaurants and they told us in our studies that the number one thing they missed about closed restaurants was going out with friends and family and enjoying that time together.”

By the end of 2023, however, it appeared the honeymoon-period surge was over. Restaurant growth again dipped sharply, this time driven by economic uncertainty, Sgabellone said.

Circana’s data still shows restaurant demand growing at four to six per cent, which is above the historical trend.

“What that means is that we as an industry can no longer count on that big crush of people coming back into our restaurants,” Sgabellone said.

“Now it becomes a steal-share scenario. Operators have to steal what share they can from the other operators by convincing a potential customer not to eat something else.”

There are two factors at work, he added. The first is what happened when a large segment of the population faced lock-down for more than a year. People become accustomed to doing everything at home. Given this new kind of customer, restaurants have either adapted, becoming masters of the takeout trade, or closed.

The other factor is inflation, making people more budget conscious. This puts restaurateurs in a double bind. Their customer base is reluctant to spend money, while their own purchasing, hiring and operating costs are also subject to inflation.

Many have been forced to raise prices or decrease portion sizes.

“Other people are saying, ‘I still want to go to out but I’m going to save money,’” Sgabellone said. “They say, ‘I’m going to take advantage of promotions and coupons and deals. I’m going to discount. I’m going to order fewer items,’ and that’s not good for a side dish like french fries.”

The industry needs to move away from the transactional visit, where a customer picks up a sandwich as a necessary distraction on the way to doing something else, he said. Instead, he suggested the restaurant trade has to move toward the experiential visit, an event where people socialize and the meal is a form of entertainment.

Canadians today are budgeting for something to experience outside of home, he said. They’ve spent the last few years spending on appliances for cooking and at-home entertainment. Now they want to get out and enjoy concerts, sporting events, camping or picnics.

But vacations and concerts are also expensive, he noted.

“In the context of the price of those sorts of experiences, a restaurant visit, even an expensive restaurant, seems awfully affordable and it can be a fun night out if our industry does it right.”

Sgabellone likes the term “revenge spending,” which involves getting out and doing stuff instead of buying stuff.

Gen Z and the potato market

“When it comes to the older consumers, it’s all about avoidances,” Sgabellone said. “What they eat is pretty much set at that point.”

At the same time, older people are at a point in their lives where they may try to avoid things like sugar, fat or salt for health reasons.

Gen Z, those between the ages of 13 and 27, is being courted by everyone in the food business because of disposable income.

“They are different from any other generation that came before them,” Sgabellone said. “They are more ethnically diverse. They love snacking. When they’re hungry, they eat what they want and when they want, and this is why they love delivery. They can order on their app and have it at their front door in a matter of minutes.”

Gen Z is also a generation that loves learning about and trying new brands. They’re big supporters of the up-and-coming smaller chains rather than the big chains their parents know.

“They’re looking for things that are new, different, maybe a little more authentic when it comes to those global flavours and those global cuisines, things that they just can’t necessarily get from the big brands,” Sgabellone said.

“This is what’s really influencing a lot of the macro trends that are going on in food services right now.”

Gen Z loves bowls, whether that’s ramen, burrito, grain or rice bowls, and they love scrolling through social media posts from their peers. When they try something new, they love posting opinions and pictures. They’re heavily influenced by social media.

“I’ve been asking the industry this question for about six years: how Instagram-able is your restaurant? How Instagram-able is your food?” Sgabellone said.

“It’s very important because this is how the younger generation are deciding how they’re going to interact with brands, and it’s up to brands to figure out where their customers are on social media so they can interact with them.”

Unfortunately for the potato industry, bowl recipes tend to skip the spuds. Although the french fry is still on top and younger Gen Zs like their fries, older members of the generation are not big potato eaters.

Sgabellone’s old chip truck is still there, in a fashion. French fries are still the top menu item in Canada, and there are plenty of opportunities to sell more fries to more Canadians. There are variations as well, such as breakfast hash browns or waffle fries.

There is also poutine, a bowl dish that has successfully broken into the Gen Z market.

But today’s food trucks generally feature a range of new and different foods, while social cohorts and dining habits are changing. That creates headwinds for the Canadian industry.

The potato is versatile, Sgabellone said, and there are still chances to break into new corners of the food market.

“You’ve got time. The sky isn’t falling. The bottom is not going to fall out tomorrow, but you’ve got to start thinking about that future, the future of food service sales and where these 1.2 billion french fry sales are going to go.”

The post Consumers at the wheel of potato market appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Friends and family are regularly discussing where their food comes from, at least in my circles.

The desire to “shop local” has moved out of urban ‘hipsterville’ and into the mainstream, as folks across the country realize the importance of purchasing food coming from Canada.

Hand in hand with that realization is another lesson being learned by millions of people: that Canada’s food supply chain is pretty secure.

Despite challenges — some of which are still ongoing — grocery store shelves have largely remained stocked.

Seeing this shift in my own circles made me think it was odd efforts are still being poured into ensuring the general public is aware of just how good we have it in Canada when it comes to food.

That’s the goal of a recent campaign launched by the Canadian Centre for Food Integrity (CCFI).

The “It’s Good, Canada” campaign was created, according to its spiffy new website, to “celebrate the work of everyone involved in Canada’s food system and to show that our system is designed with a single purpose in mind: to ensure good-quality food makes its way to the plates of all Canadians and families around the world.”

Kudos to the folks behind this campaign for capitalizing on a ready-made teachable moment brought on by the pandemic, but it is a shame such a campaign is still needed.

Given the recent circumstances and strains supply chains have endured, you would think Canadians would give Canada’s food systems a bit more credit, and a willingness to support the industry.

But despite many Canadians realizing throughout the pandemic the strength and security of our food systems, it’s clear such a campaign is indeed needed.

A 2019 study from CCFI found only one in three Canadian consumers believe Canada’s food system is headed in the right direction – rising food costs and accessing affordable healthy food remain top concerns.

Perhaps the pandemic has shifted those sentiments in a more positive direction, but a campaign like “It’s Good, Canada” can only help.

What is still to be determined is how much this and other similar campaigns will have on improving public sentiments.

Meanwhile, the most notable – or at least, expensive – campaign promoting Canadian food is one being led by the federal government.

Ottawa is planning to spend between $1.5 million and $4 million a year, over five years, on a “Buy Canadian” promotional campaign that would aim to “better connect Canadians with, and instil pride in, Canada’s food system and its agriculture, food and seafood products.”

“The campaign should tell the story of Canada’s agri-food sector and reach audiences on an emotional level in order to instil pride and confidence in the country’s food systems,” reads one part of a contract notice posted by the federal government in January to find a company to design and launch the program.

But some within the federal Ministry of Agriculture and Agri-Food hint that project is being delayed. There was some expectation it would launch this summer, but the search for a private company to execute the campaign, I’m told, is still ongoing.

There remains a smattering of regional campaigns promoting Canadian food, many of which are funded by provinces.

At a time when so many Canadians are waking up to the strength of Canada’s agri-food industry, it’s a shame such programs are still needed.

The post Comment: Canadian food promotions shouldn’t be needed — but they are appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

While the general inflation rate sits at -0.2 per cent, the food inflation rate is at 3.4 per cent. In December 2019, Canada’s Food Price Report forecasted a food inflation rate of about four per cent for 2020, and this is very much where this year is heading toward.

But COVID-19’s economic shock will likely be long lasting and will affect grocery shoppers’ pocketbooks for quite some time.

In Canada, inflation has not been an issue for the past decade. It came close to four per cent in 2011 and that is about it. Not much excitement there. We have seen some decoupling between the general and food inflation before, but nothing like this. Food prices are increasing almost four times more rapidly than the price of any other durable goods in the economy. Now, the Consumer Price Index is not reflecting the actual costs households are facing due to lockdowns. We are all consuming differently. Still, the difference between the two is huge.

In March, the initial shock wave was real rather than financial, and it impacted industry and the rest of the economy directly. Food service, a sector which generates more than $90 billion of revenues a year in Canada, essentially disappeared almost overnight. Lockdowns forced the entire food industry to adjust quickly to a change in our economy.

That shock was swiftly transmitted to the demand side, as households were hit by layoffs and lower incomes. Financial markets were then hit hard by the uncertainty, not knowing when the pandemic and lockdowns would end, unlike other recessions where a slowdown is triggered by a shift in demand which leads to subsequent market pressures to cut supply. That is what our textbooks tell us.

COVID-19 is essentially a one-two punch to the system; whereas, both sides of the economy, supply and demand, were hit hard. There is no textbook for that. The recovery’s sequence is hard to predict, with more than eight million Canadians who have applied for the Canadian Emergency Recovery Benefit (CERB).

Once confinement measures loosen up and Canadians can go out, shop, visit restaurants and do other normal activities to support the economy, the question is whether Canadians will show up. If lingering fears of contagion and of a possible second wave and uncertainty about household incomes prevail, the likely outcome is deflation or at least a price drop for most things.

‘Deflation’ is likely the scariest word for any economist. It is like cancer to an economy. It’s hard to end deflation and grow an economy when consumers know that what they want to buy today will be cheaper tomorrow. That could impact clothing, cars, houses, you name it. Taxes will go up, putting more pressure on consumer demand. So economically, let us hope Canadians do their part when allowed.

Food though will likely buck the deflationary trend for an extended period. Unlike what many analysts have often said, the food sector is not recession-proof as consumers will either trade down or will not go out as much. But with COVID-19, nobody has been going out to restaurants, and consumers have not really celebrated their lockdowns over caviar either. Most of us went back to basics, cooking, baking and making bread. Consumer demand has now a COVID-19 benchmark. Deflation or not, we need to eat.

Yet on the supply side, COVID-19 is making everything more expensive to produce, process, distribute, retail, everything. New cleaning protocols, higher salaries, building infrastructure for e-commerce to accommodate consumers who no longer want to physically grocery shop, all will cost more. Plant shutdowns and food safety issues are the last things the food industry needs.

With online shopping being more popular, delivery costs will also need to be covered by consumers, whether we like it or not. Food has always been a high-volume, low-margin business and that is not going to change. For industry, covering the cost to produce and distribute food, and asking consumers to pay more will not change either. COVID-19 is impacting the entire planet, so we cannot import our way out of this scenario either.

As a result, we could see the average Canadian family devote a much greater percentage of their budget on food. Pre-COVID, roughly nine per cent of our budget was devoted to food. It is one of the lowest percentages in the world. That could rise to 11 per cent or even 12 per cent by 2022. In fact, given lockdowns, that percentage is likely much higher right now. In comparison, Americans are at six per cent or seven per cent, whereas, Europeans will spend about 15 per cent. Their percentage will likely change as well. In 1970, Canadian households were spending 21 per cent of their budgets on food. So, in a sense, we are going back in time.

Simply put, current food economics are overwhelmingly forcing us to revisit the social contract we have with food, perhaps for the betterment of society. Valuing food has only positive socio-economic implications. Current food economics are making us more attuned to what is happening around us food-wise. It is also making us more food literate. Such a shift in food prices is relative to what else is going on in the economy and will leave many behind as food insecurity levels in many parts of our country will soar. Single parents, children, and underprivileged demographic groups, will require more attention as we embark into a new food era.

However, there is a silver lining. Since March, even if food prices have been rising, most households are spending less on food. Each household in Canada is saving approximately $5 a day by just cooking at home and avoiding restaurants. That is roughly more than $345 since the beginning of the pandemic, which far exceeds price hikes shoppers needed to absorb during the same period.

Any way we look at it, COVID-19 will have a long-lasting impact on our relationship with food, and no one is immune to that.

The post Opinion: Better get used to higher food prices appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The comments were made during a digital meeting of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food on May 8.

James Donaldson, who sits on the board of the organization that represents more than 1,500 food and beverage manufacturing businesses, says the companies he represents have seen their costs increase $800 million as a result of COVID-19 and these costs cannot easily be passed on to consumers.

Food and Beverage Canada chief executive officer Kathleen Sullivan said the pandemic has created a huge problem for the industry.

“We are facing a new normal of extraordinary cost pressures that we need to address somehow either by means of government support or by food price increases,” she said, telling the committee there is currently no relief being offered.

She said most food companies do not qualify for existing COVID-19 emergency relief measures – such as the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) – because they are targeted at businesses experiencing lost incomes.

Because people continue to purchase food and drinks, Sullivan said the companies she represents have not seen significant drops in revenue.

Instead, business expenses have increased due to the pandemic, largely because of mitigation efforts put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

While noting the federal government’s commitment of $77.5 million to assist processors in managing COVID-19 mitigation costs, Sullivan said the costs of adapting are estimated to be around $800 million.

“We didn’t build our food plants to accommodate social distancing, we built them to accommodate food safety,” she said, noting to accommodate the former, more capital investments will be needed.

Telling the committee that cost was “impossible” to pass on to consumers, especially given its magnitude, she called for policy changes to assist her membership.

“The ongoing pressures that we’re facing are undoubtedly going to destroy some companies and drive them into bankruptcy,” she said.

“Food availability, food affordability, food sovereignty are all going to be impacted. If we do nothing Canadians will still eat, and what we will see is more and more of our grocery shelf will be filled with products that come from offshore.”

Sullivan said the federal government should be expanding its emergency relief efforts to consider loss of income, not just revenue, and contemplate putting in place tax credits for the industry to offset pandemic adaptation costs.

On May 15, the federal government announced it will be consulting with key businesses and be considering adjustments to its programs, including a review of the revenue-decline threshold.

She told committee members a reflection of the entire food system – from farm to retail – is required to identify weak links.

Because Canada’s food system is managed by both the provinces and Ottawa, Sullivan said there needs to be better co-operation among federal and provincial officials.

“If we understand what we look like, I think that will help us,” she said, noting one of the things she noticed when the pandemic started was that Canada “had absolutely no plan for the food system.”

During her remarks, Sullivan also recognized the commitment of food and beverage workers across the country.

“For two months as a pandemic has ravaged the globe, food workers have continued to go to work so we can have food. Our workers are heroes, but they are not superheroes,” she said, noting three of those workers died after contracting the disease.

Citing a drop in demand in schools, restaurants and hotels, the Retail Council of Canada’s Jason McLinton told committee members that proactive measures to allow for greater sourcing flexibility need to be adopted on a temporary basis immediately.

He specifically pointed out the need for CFIA to ease restrictions on labelling to better allow retailers to sell products labelled for other markets.

The post Food and beverage sector misunderstood by regulators appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

But since a strict nationwide lockdown was imposed on March 20 to slow the spread of the coronavirus, it is having to adapt. Don Julio has converted into a high-end butcher shop, with plans to roll out street food.

Pablo Rivero, the owner of Don Julio, said the aim was to keep alive the atmosphere and feeling of the corner grill, or ‘parrilla’ — a concept that is a key part of Argentine culture and as ubiquitous and emblematic of Buenos Aires as a café in Paris or local London pub.

“We are not going to lose it, so it is a question of finding a way of getting through this,” he said.

Argentines have been told to stay at home, unless they are a key worker or are buying groceries or other essentials.

That has meant restaurants and cafés have been closed, while small local bakeries, grocers and butchers remain open.

“Certainly the idea of the butcher shop is to give people a shade of Don Julio,” said Rivero.

He said they would not do cooked food delivery because it was hard to maintain quality, though they are accelerating a plan to sell street food.

“This way we can engage people in something that can represent an income until activity restarts,” he said, adding that his 100 employees were still working during the lockdown in the butcher shop or helping remodel the restaurant.

Gaston Riveira, the head of another of the capital city’s top parrillas, La Cabrera, said the sector was going through a tough time under the lockdown, which has been extended to at least May 24.

“We are in a difficult moment because there is no tourism and Argentines are not going out because of the quarantine,” he told Reuters. He said the restaurant had “transformed into a food factory” doing deliveries on a reduced menu.

Deliveries in aluminum trays and covered pots come with instructions on how to ensure the food is as close to restaurant quality as it can be.

“We try to make it as similar as possible,” he said, adding that a lot of the cuts offered come on the bone, which helps maintain the temperature and “juiciness.”

The global coronavirus pandemic has hit international demand for Argentine beef more broadly, with many restaurants shuttered from Asia to Europe, said Mario Ravettino, president of Argentina’s meat exporters’ group.

Some companies were freezing merchandise, he added, while “other firms are turning to the domestic market, which is extremely dynamic and the situation is changing day by day.”

Francisco Palazzo, a 28-year-old who lives with his girlfriend in Buenos Aires, said it was important for people to be able to get a taste of normality. Before the lockdown, he usually ate an ‘asado’ mixed grill three times a week.

Recently, he said he bought some cooked meat, sausage, and black pudding from a parrilla near his apartment that was now doing takeout.

“It was late and it made us want to eat an asado and continue with our old habits,” he said. “What is more you can also contribute to that business, which has really great meat — just doing the little bit you can.”

The post Argentina’s famed steak houses adapt to life under lockdown appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Though it thrives in our cool climate, it’s not native to our soil. Rhubarb is native to central Asia, according to an article from the University of Minnesota, where it was valued for its medicinal qualities. Marco Polo observed it when he travelled to China in 1271, but it wasn’t brought to Europe until the East Indian trade began.

It’s said that Benjamin Franklin introduced it to the Americas in 1770 when he sent a case of rhubarb root from London to his friend John Bartram. The British experimented with varieties of the plants, according to the University of Minnesota, and this eventually produced the tasty cooking varieties we know today.

It first appeared in American seed catalogues in 1829, and has been a garden staple ever since.

Getty Stewart is a professional home economist, speaker, recipe developer and author from Winnipeg. She’s the author of cookbook Rhubarb: Sweet & Savory Recipes and Preserves. She spoke to the Co-operator to answer rhubarb questions. Her answers have been edited for length and clarity.

How can gardeners ensure their rhubarb thrives?

Once rhubarb is established it does really well and it’s quite drought tolerant. It needs the cold and frost and freezing in order to thrive, and so we’re quite lucky that we have the perfect growing conditions for rhubarb.

That said, starting rhubarb can be a little bit tricky. When it’s young and you’re just trying to get it going—so for the first two, maybe three years—it doesn’t tolerate drought very well so you do have to keep it watered and you do have to nurture it a little bit more.

It does like some good compost. I usually do that when I’m putting it to sleep in the winter. I will add some compost around the base of it just before the snow flies. Or I’ll do it early in the spring. If you don’t have compost, then a little all-purpose fertilizer or bone meal will do the trick as well.

Rhubarb does prefer to be split every five to ten years. So if you’ve had a rhubarb plant that is like ‘oh my gosh, I had this when my grandmother was around’ and you’ve never divided it, then it’s actually a good maintenance thing to split and divide your rhubarb at least every ten years so that it revives the root. What you’ll find is that you’ll get more tender stocks. The seed head that comes out, it won’t bolt quite as quickly.

It’s usually best to do… once the ground is workable and the rhubarb hasn’t quite shot out of the ground. What you want is one to three shoots coming up or starting to form just below the surface. Dig a hole around your rhubarb plant. Once you move the soil, you’ll see that there’s these new shoots starting to form. So you want at least two or three of those shoots in every new planting that you have. And you take a spade and just slice the root right through the thick woody part of the root.

You don’t want to put the shoot too deep. You only want to cover it with about an inch of soil, but you do want to have the root be able to establish itself. So you want to dig a nice hole way too big for the size of the root that you have, but it loosens the soil and really give it a good ability to grow without having to force its way through, especially clay soil.

You want to plan for a good square meter around the shoots, and you probably want to put two to three clumpings of roots together in the one hole. And then a little bit of fertilizer or compost or bone meal, making sure to remove all weeds.

Once it’s developed and a tree grows beside it, your rhubarb will continue to go, but when you’re starting a new plant it really does prefer the sun, and it needs good watering.

You can’t harvest it in the first couple of years. It needs all the energy it can get from the stems that do grow. So it will look like you should be able to harvest it. But it really needs those leaves to capture the sun’s energy and to bring nutrients down to the roots.

(You can still harvest from the big, original plant, Getty explains—unless it appears to be struggling).

When is the best time to harvest rhubarb?

Ideally, the best time to harvest is before the seed stalks come out. So when the stalks are about seven inches long and before the seed stalk. Normally end of May to June is when ideal harvest time is for rhubarb.

When people see the [seed stalks] starting to grow on their rhubarb if they want to prolong their rhubarb harvest they should cut that stalk off. Then the rhubarb will continue to be a little bit more tender and they’ll be able to harvest more of it.

You can pick through the summer and you can pick in the fall, but you want to reduce the amount that you pick. On a well-established plant in June, you can pick up to two thirds of the stalks. IN the summer and in the fall, you would only harvest one third of the stalks and leave two thirds of the plant ‘cause it needs more of the greens to really keep itself nourished and strong.

Should you cut your rhubarb or yank it out?

You can do both. If you break off the bottom it’s no better or no worse than cutting it, but if you reach down and tug right at the ground level and get the whole stalk separated from the plant, that is a little bit better for the plant to recover more quickly.

It’s best to pull, but it’s okay to cut.

Is rhubarb nutritious?

There are certain nutrients in rhubarb, so you will get some vitamin C, vitamin A, vitamin K. There’s definitely fiber. There’s some calcium and potassium that we may not get from other vegetables, and rhubarb is technically a vegetable.

But when you think about how we usually use rhubarb—like it’s usually in sweet baking, right? You’re getting some vitamin K, some vitamin A, some vitamin C. Does that make that rhubarb muffin health and nutritious? Well… there’s a lot of sugar, a lot of fat, but sure. It’s a vegetable so we must be doing something good. Certainly, everything in moderation and balance.

(She adds that because of the vitamin K and potassium, people with kidney issues may want to talk to their doctor about eating rhubarb).

Are the leaves really poisonous?

Yes. We should not be eating, we should not be sautéing, using in salads or anything like that. It has higher oxalic acid in the leaf, so we should not eat those. Now, it would take a lot of leaves for you to become extremely sick from eating rhubarb leaves. And they’re just not that tasty and you’d get sores in your mouth before you reach critical levels.

I think there’s rumours that maybe in World War One, because people were starving, somebody may have passed away from eating rhubarb leaves, but as far as I know there have been no reported cases of rhubarb poisoning as cause of death.

If we have, for example a late frost, and rhubarb gets damaged… (she gives the example of a freak snowstorm or cold snap in late May)… so the leaves turn limp, the stems turn limp and it just doesn’t look good. You should not eat the stalks. You should not eat any of that rhubarb at all. Not until there’s new growth that looks fresh and good and healthy. Those oxalates that are in the leaves will move down to the stem, so hard-hit, frost-bitten rhubarb is not safe to eat. If the stalks look bad, don’t eat it.

What is your favourite way to prepare rhubarb?

That changes through the season. The first batch, I love stewed rhubarb and then rhubarb pie and then rhubarb crisp and rhubarb cobbler. Some of the classics are some of the first things I would have. And then, toward the end of the season I’m turning it into barbecue sauce or making juice out of it and making rhubarb lemonade and really fun and interesting recipes.

What are some unexpected ways to use rhubarb?

We don’t think of rhubarb as being juicy, but if you boil it down and squeeze out the juice, it makes great cocktails or ‘mocktails’. You can make lemonade. You can make a breakfast mimosa with a little bit of champagne and orange juice in it.

Last summer I made, I call it “nice cream” with an ‘n’ because it’s mashed bananas and rhubarb basically and you freeze it and you make this delicious dessert with it. I make a focaccia bread with caramelized onions and slightly braised rhubarb. It’s quite nice. I also dehydrate rhubarb into little pieces which I then add into different tea blends.

You can find Getty’s rhubarb cookbook and other recipes at her website gettystewart.com.

The post A rhubarb Q&A with Getty Stewart appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Be it crippling regulations, lack of risk management programs for small farmers, or simply lack of local supply chains, several factors say Manitoba’s local food system has yet to fully mature.

“It seems that Manitoba lacks a clear idea of how local food fits into regional development strategies,” said University of Manitoba researcher Iain Davidson-Hunt, who led a study of local microbrewers.

“I would think that a policy environment that includes a focus on local food broadly and then craft beer within that framework can then open space for funding programs to invest in building a local/regional food system in order to help it grow,” he added.

‘Barley’ any local ingredients

Local brewers want to make beer from local barley and hops, but the supply chains don’t exist, Davidson-Hunt and colleagues found.

Manitoba farmers produce hundreds of thousands of tonnes of barley each year but very little makes it into Manitoba-made beer. Small brewers said they buy malt from Brewers Supply Group (with malting facilities in Alberta and Minnesota) and Country Malt Group (locations in Alberta and Ontario).

One brewer said he used to buy from Manitoba malter MaltEurop, but switched suppliers because he couldn’t get a product that met his needs.

Only Neepawa brewer Farmery consistently uses local barley — because it grows it itself and has it custom malted.

Manitoba doesn’t have a ‘craft’ or small-scale malting facility, which is one issue keeping local brewers from buying local malt.

Meanwhile, Manitoba has three commercial hop producers (including Farmery, which produces for itself). These don’t supply enough hops for all of Manitoba’s beer needs, but brewers like Brazen Hall’s Jeremy Wells said they buy local hops when they can.

Growers said hops are labour-intensive and take a lot of cash to get started.

No safety net

After their market garden got off to a record start, sudden flooding and wind damage sunk crops at Justin Girard and Britt Embry’s certified organic vegetable farm near Elie, this July.

The loss, which at the time they estimated to be at least $40,000 in sales, highlighted that small producers like Girard and Embry aren’t eligible for crop insurance despite deriving their entire income from their produce.

While Manitoba Agriculture Services Corp. insures vegetable acres, commercial vegetable growers must grow a minimum of three acres of each crop for it to be eligible for insurances.

Girard and Embry farm just over three acres, total. On that, they grow about 40 varieties and can gross $35,000 per acre in crops.

However, producers said an entirely different insurance model would be needed to even be relevant to their style of farming, which can involve growing dozens of crops at various planting and harvesting times throughout the season. Variety has been the small-producer’s insurance in the past.

Market gardener Bruce Berry compared the current MASC crop insurance model to offering a Caterpillar earth-hauler wheel to someone riding a bicycle.

In November, Direct Farm Manitoba, which represents small producers and food manufacturers, pitched a catastrophic-loss insurance to its members based off a model used in Quebec.

Quebec offers crop insurance for local market gardening, covering berries and small fruit, herbs, potatoes and market garden crops, according to a program fact sheet. The program covers excessive wind and rain, hail, late or early frost, tornadoes and hurricanes.

To be eligible, the farmer must cultivate a minimum of two acres, all crops combined, and grow a minimum of 10 different crops.

Cheese on the chopping block

Cheese makers Dustin Peltier and Rachel Isaak said the province’s overcomplicated and unfair regulations have forced them nearly to bankruptcy.

The couple, along with Peltier’s parents Gary and Silver Peltier, had taken up the mantle of Trappist-style cheese making after the monk who’d make it for decades retired. The unpasteurized cheese has been made in Manitoba at least since the early 20th century.

Peltier and Isaak said they’ve spent about $70,000 in repeated tests and discarded cheese and still haven’t met the province’s mark for validation.

Documents provided to the Co-operator showed that the province initially said it would test the first three lots of cheese Peltier and Isaak made.

Initial batches showed high bacteria counts, but a few months later the cheese had passed three rounds of testing. This wasn’t enough, the couple said. They were told they’d need to continue testing each batch of cheese.

In January 2019, Peltier and Isaak asked provincial inspectors how many more tests they had to pass before their process was validated. They were told they must pass 10 more tests.

After mediation with the province failed to resolve their issues, Peltier and Isaak reached the end of their rope. They stopped making the traditional, unpasteurized cheese.

Local food advocates said Peltier and Isaak’s case, while extreme, isn’t a one-off. Researcher Jeanette Sivilay wrote that among the local food community, “complex, inconsistently interpreted and applied regulations” are a large concern.

Regulations aren’t always clearcut, said Dave Shambrock, executive director of Food + Beverage Manitoba. Interpreting and applying them can put inspectors in awkward positions.

Sivilay, Peltier and Isaak spoke about fear of retaliation among the community.

“That’s a huge red flag,” said food advocate Erin Crampton, adding it speaks volumes to the tone and attitude of the Manitoba Agriculture organization.

Ag Minister Blaine Pedersen responded to Peltier and Isaak’s accusations, saying it is the province’s responsibility to keep the food supply safe.

Looking ahead

The cheese makers’ plight received an outpouring of support on Peltier and Isaak’s Facebook and Instagram pages.

Peltier and Isaak have since told the Co-operator that they’re not done. Photos of shirts emblazoned with “save the cheese” popped up on their social media, and the couple said they’re gathering information on how to best tackle regulatory hurdles.

Meanwhile, they’ve begun making cheese with pasteurized milk to generate cash flow.

Direct Farm Manitoba indicated it would take the Quebec model of crop insurance for small producers to MASC in spring.

The Pallister government’s winning election platform included a promise to exempt craft breweries and distillers from markup for on-premise sales of their products, and to work with the local craft brewers to reduce red tape and barriers to growth.

It remains to be seen what this will mean for local supply chains.

The post Year in Review: Local food producers struggle ahead appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Husband and wife team Dustin Peltier and Rachel Isaak, along with Peltier’s parents Gary and Silver Peltier, say the province has blocked them at every turn as they’ve attempted to bring their traditional, Trappist-style cheese to market — withholding information, changing requirements midstream, misleading, and even laughing at them.

“We have no more funds to continue,” the couple wrote in a statement recently. “We will be moving forward with making a different version of this treasured cheese using pasteurized milk — it will not be the same. But it is the only way we can continue to honour the Brother’s (sic) legacy.”

The couple has spent about $70,000 on testing and product loss due to testing errors. Now, they’ve reached the end of their rope.

Peltier told the Manitoba Co-operator he expects retaliation from the province for going to the press, but he and Isaak have little left to lose.

“We are hoping that by telling our story others will have more confidence to come forward and we can work towards fixing the problems with the system,” the couple said.

Why it matters: Food advocates say if regulations were streamlined, an artisanal cheese industry could pop up in Manitoba, but prospective producers have been scared off by Peltier and Isaak’s ordeal.

Local food advocates say they’re not alone. Rather, barriers placed before small food producers send the message that the Manitoba government is not interested in a local food industry, and would rather protect itself than help small-business owners.

“(Getting into the industry is) an uphill battle with very little reward versus risk,” said Stefan Regnier, a farmer and board member with Direct Farm Manitoba.

Preserving history

In 1918, Trappist monks at the St. Norbert Monastery got a cheese recipe as a Christmas present. The monks began making the pale-orange, washed-rind cheese and carried the practice with them to Holland, Manitoba in the 1970s.

In 2016, elderly monk Brother Alberic was the only one making the cheese — likely in North America — and didn’t want the recipe to die when he retired. Peltier and Isaak, who are chefs and caterers, took up the mantle along with their parents.

For a week, Peltier lived at the monastery to learn from Alberic and continued to visit monthly afterward — monastic rules kept Isaak from entering the facility. Alberic also gave them 100-year-old letters from the monks to another monastery in Quebec.

“What we’re preserving is — we feel — pretty important to Manitoba and to the dairy community,” Peltier said.

However, their first meeting with provincial inspectors started on an ominous note.

“We walked in, and they handed us articles on people who have died from raw milk products,” Isaak said.

The Trappist-style cheese is made from raw, unpasteurized milk. Sale of unpasteurized milk is illegal in Manitoba due to risk of harmful bacteria like salmonella, E. coli and listeria, according to a fact sheet from the province.

However, through the cheese-making process, beneficial microbes develop and “inoculate” the cheese against pathogens. A level of biofilm or residue is required on equipment, instead of the sterile stainless steel associated with commercial food production, because this maintains a population of helpful micro-organisms.

The cheese ages on wooden boards in a climate-controlled room, which Peltier and Isaak said mimics how cheese was aged in European caves. Brother Alberic had a concrete “bunker” in which he aged his cheeses.

In their first meeting, said Peltier and Isaak, the inspectors did not know what requirements they’d have to meet to prove their cheese safe, but promised to look into it.

It took four months for an inspector to deliver testing requirements — and then by phone and not in writing, Peltier and Isaak said.

While Brother Alberic had been making and selling Trappist cheese in Manitoba for years, Peltier and Isaak said Manitoba Agriculture either had not inspected him or did not have records of Alberic’s requirements.

“The Abbey Cheese Plant’s raw milk cheese process was approved by the federal government’s standards,” a spokesperson from the province wrote in an emailed statement.

“The Abbey Cheese Plant was also inspected on a regular basis by the province to ensure compliance to the Dairy Regulation and the Food and Food Handling Establishments Regulation.

“Operators must demonstrate that their product consistently meets Health Canada microbiological safety standards,” the spokesperson said. They linked to a page of federal food and drug regulations.

The regulation states, “No person shall sell cheese, including cheese curd, that is not made from a pasteurized source unless it has been stored.”

“Stored” means “to have been kept or held at a temperature of 2 C or more for a period of 60 days or more from the date of the beginning of the manufacturing process.”

• Read more: The case of the disappearing food act

The regulation provides standards of what bacteria counts the cheese must not exceed and prescribes which test method must be used to determine this. It doesn’t specify how many tests must be passed to validate the cheese-making procedure.

“A consistent, validated production process must be followed, which includes lab testing at an accredited lab,” said the provincial spokesperson. “If a producer is able to meet all the appropriate standards and consistently produce a safe product, they are free to sell their product to the public.”

Moving goalposts

In a March 2018 document provided to the Co-operator, the province told Peltier and Isaak it would test their first three lots of cheese.

Because Peltier and Isaak use raw milk, they weren’t allowed to use a commercial kitchen to make test batches of cheese. In March 2018, they finished refurbishing a construction trailer into a test kitchen. It passed inspection, and they received a dairy-processing permit.

The first wheels of cheese went for testing at a Manitoba lab in June.

Early cheese came back high in bacteria, but Peltier and Isaak said this wasn’t unexpected. Their new kitchen needed time to build up biofilm and beneficial microbes. They asked for permission to age cheese longer to decrease bacteria — a practice they said is standard in artisan cheese making — but were denied.

By September, they’d passed three consecutive rounds of testing with good results. However, the province told them they’d have to continue testing each lot of cheese because “we use different raw milk in each batch,” the couple said.

In a later round of testing, Peltier and Isaak sent samples to the Manitoba lab and another lab in Ontario. The samples were from the same batches of cheese, but while the Ontario lab sent back clean results, the Manitoba lab sent back results with sky-high counts of deadly bacteria.

Peltier said if their bacteria counts were truly that high, their cheese would be a biohazard and the province should shut them down immediately. This did not happen, and inspectors seemed unfazed.

The couple met with an inspector and staff from the Manitoba lab. The inspector assured lab staff that the mistake couldn’t have been theirs, said Peltier and Isaak. The lab later refunded them for these tests.

In December 2018, inspectors got CFIA approval for Peltier and Isaak to age their cheese longer if they tested high in harmful bacteria. They’d been asking for permission for over a year.

“We would have been able to save 330 wheels of cheese at a retail cost of $26,000,” the couple said.

Peltier and Isaak also said they were told that to pick up milk directly from a nearby dairy farm, they would need to have a dairy board staff member present, or get a bulk transport licence. However, when they asked how to get this licence, Manitoba Agriculture staff told them there was no course in the province that could train them.

For two years, the couple was unable to get the licence until, in January of 2019, they were told they didn’t need it due to a regulation change in 2015.

They asked inspectors why they weren’t told this. The inspector said, “it is not our job to tell you the rules and regulations,” the couple said.

In January 2019, they asked the province how many more tests they needed to pass, as they’d passed the prescribed three tests three times. They were told they now needed to pass 10 consecutive tests.

Frustrated, the couple set up a mediation meeting with Manitoba Agriculture. In the meeting, Peltier and Isaak said a senior official said she was “here to protect her staff” and blamed their lost money on going “all in” too soon.

Not alone

With $70,000 sunk into testing and discarded cheese, Peltier and Isaak are out of money. They’ve begun making cheese with pasteurized milk. It won’t be the same, but they need cash flow.

Their case bears striking similarity to another, high-profile case.

In 2013, Harborside Farms near Pilot Mound won a provincial award for its cured meat products, writes local food advocate Jeanette Sivilay in her 2019 thesis, Organizing for Food Sovereignty in Manitoba. Three months later, a new inspector was assigned to the farm. They reinterpreted guidelines for the meats and ordered Harborside Farms to halt production.

In late summer of that year, inspectors from a different arm of the same department raided the farm, writes Sivilay. They seized cured meat products, claiming the farm had continued to sell them without approval. The products were deemed unfit for human consumption and were destroyed without testing, says Sivilay.

Among 26 people she interviewed from the local food community, Sivilay says many of them raised concerns about “complex, inconsistently interpreted and applied regulations that were not appropriate to the scale and unique production methods of local food providers.”

The producers also spoke of distrust for regulators who permeated the community after the Harborside Farms raid, along with feelings of fear and powerlessness.

Fear of retaliation is still present in the local food community. Peltier and Isaak first spoke to the Co-operator in July, but asked it not to publish for fear of retaliation.

“People feel vulnerable,” said Erin Crampton, a local food advocate.

Crampton said she’s often been the one to challenge the province because, as she’s not a processor or producer, she can’t be punished.

“That’s a huge red flag,” she said, adding it speaks volumes to the tone and attitude of the organization.

Crampton said with such onerous regulations, people are tempted to sell on the black market until they have enough cash flow to afford to do things legally.

Unnecessary obstacles

It doesn’t need to be so hard, Crampton said. European cheese makers have made raw milk cheese for centuries — and exported it to Manitoba. Other provinces, like Quebec, have raw milk cheese industries. Trappist cheese was made and sold in Manitoba for decades.

Manitoba Agriculture should have plenty of precedent to which it can refer for guidance, Crampton said.

“Why it has gone off the rails is just a bloody mystery to me,” she said.

“When you come to Manitoba Ag with an artisanal product that has traditionally been made, maybe for thousands of years even, but is an artisanal product that is not commercially made, the inspectors don’t know what they’re looking at,” said Bruce Berry at a recent Direct Farm Manitoba meeting. Berry is a market gardener and a local food veteran.

“Their only safe, from their job and career standpoint, from a real-people basis, is to stop it because they can’t put themselves at risk,” said Berry.

On the inspector’s part, regulations aren’t always clearcut, said Dave Shambrock, executive director of Food & Beverage Manitoba. They’re also couched in legal language, which inspectors must interpret and apply, sometimes putting them in “a very awkward position,” said Shambrock.

Crampton said if the province streamlined the approval process, an artisanal cheese industry could pop up in Manitoba. She, Peltier and Isaak said they knew cheese makers who want to enter the market but are waiting for Peltier and Isaak to clear the hurdles.

“As soon as you find an advocate, someone who has an attitude of success — suddenly very sensible regulations are found and people are able to move forward,” said Crampton.

She likened this to what happened to the craft beer industry when the province loosened liquor regulations.

The life cycle of regulatory change is “generational,” Direct Farm Manitoba president Phil Veldhuis said at a recent members’ meeting. It works, but it takes years of grinding.

Meanwhile, Peltier and Isaak plan to “bide our time until the powers that be gain common sense.”

The Co-operator asked Minister of Agriculture Blaine Pedersen to comment on accusations against department inspectors. While a provincial spokesperson sent an emailed statement, it did not address these complaints.

The post Artisanal cheese makers cheesed off appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The staple of drive-in restaurants, they’re fairly ordinary beef burgers with lettuce, tomato and a thick pickle spear, except they have a chili sauce that isn’t found much elsewhere.

These burgers are also often served in Greek Canadian restaurants.

To some residents of Winnipeg, fat boys might just be part of the landscape. To Zach Hamilton, a University of Winnipeg student (and transplant to Winnipeg) participating in the Manitoba Food History Project, it was something worth digging into.

As suspected, there was a story behind it.

The Manitoba Food History Project explores the province’s history through the lens of food production, sales and consumption from 1870 to the present. Janis Thiessen, a history professor at the University of Winnipeg, leads the study.

Since summer of 2018 Thiessen, with co-researchers Kimberley Moore and Kent Davies, has travelled across Manitoba in a food truck. Instead of cooking food, they invite people aboard the truck to cook with them and talk about food preparation and traditions in their families. These interviews were recorded for preservation in the university’s Oral History Centre.

This year, the University of Winnipeg offered a two-week course that trained students in gathering and recording oral history, and then brought them aboard the food truck to conduct interviews.

Hamilton, in search of the story of the chili sauce, interviewed restaurateur John Ginakes, owner of legendary eatery Johnny G’s and others. He also spoke to Demitris Scouras, whose family founded the Red Top Drive Inn on St. Mary’s Road.

Hamilton compiled these interviews in an episode of the project’s podcast, “Preserves.”

Ginakes and Scouras told Hamilton how Greek immigrants in the 1950s arrived in Canada with little education or money. They’d band together to open restaurants, and then work 15 or 16 hours a day to keep them open. They’d also train other Greek immigrants in their restaurants, who would go on to open their own businesses.

The chili sauce recipe was yet another thing shared from restaurant to restaurant.

“We’re using food history to tell stories about migration, or settlement, or ethnicity and identity,” Thiessen told the Manitoba Co-operator. “Any aspect of history at all, but food is the way in to try and relate to the subject.”

“It’s very relatable because everyone eats. Everyone has feelings about eating,” she said.

Thiessen’s interviews have taken her to Steinbach, Altona, Dauphin, St. Norbert and even Churchill. She said even the interviews that seem ordinary are important.

“This is the kind of thing that has been ignored by history,” Thiessen said. Cooking dinner isn’t documented, she said, so it has been largely lost to time.

People like the Greek immigrants to Winnipeg, or wider groups like women, have often been undervalued and thus understudied by historians, said Thiessen.

“The story of ‘how do you feed families?’ is pretty key,” she said, adding that people get away with saying, “we should eat like our great-grandmothers did,” with very little knowledge of how they actually ate.

“We can’t generalize about the past — we can’t assume on the basis of our own present experience or our, you know, happy-go-lucky feelings of how people used to live in the past,” Thiessen said. “There is no, ‘it’s not a banking history, it’s not a business owner, it’s just a housewife… ’ they’re all equally important in understanding various aspects of human life, and the ones that have been dismissed too often in the past are often ones that are really key.”

Thiessen said histories like these show that the present was not inevitable, but was shaped by various forces and choices. Understanding this gives us the chance to make better decisions for the future, she said.

The post Manitoba Food History Project ‘trucks along’ appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

For months, rumours were swirling around McDonald’s and when it would launch a plant-based product. We now know McDonald’s will enter the plant-based game by running a pilot in Ontario.

The pilot project will last 12 weeks. This is a global first for McDonald’s. That’s right, Canada is McDonald’s protein test lab.

This past summer, McDonald’s heavily promoted the virtues of beef and animal proteins, upselling the authentic and natural attributes of meat. Many noticed, and believed McDonald’s would never add a plant-based product to its menu.

But now McDonald’s will start serving a Plant-Lettuce-Tomato (promoted as a PLT) sandwich at 28 restaurants in southwestern Ontario, including locations in London and Sarnia. It will cost $6.49, which is almost the same price as the Quarter Pounder.

This price point seems to suggest that McDonald’s is reluctant to add a plant-based product to its menu. But the product being added is probably vastly superior to its disastrous 2003 “veggie burger” which retailed for $1.99.

This time, the company’s commitment appears to be different. The plant-based ethos is in a different place today, and McDonald’s knows it. The product, supplied by Beyond Meat, was especially developed for McDonald’s, to match consumers’ more contemporary expectations.

The new protein patty will be cooked on the same grills as beef burgers, chicken and eggs. While this could be an issue for vegans and vegetarians, that’s not the market McDonald’s is aiming for.

So the plant-based invasion continues, and even for McDonald’s, market data is too compelling to ignore.

The fact that Canadian icon Tim Hortons pulled back from its Beyond Meat breakfast sandwich was not surprising as proteins were never part of the chain’s core business. For protein-focused outlets, stakes are different. Like A&W, Subway, and Burger King, McDonald’s is now protein hedging with its menu.

Providing choice to consumers makes business sense. With this pilot, McDonald’s is recognizing that a larger assortment of protein products on its menu will increase the likelihood of purchases. Some suggest that by 2025, more than 10 million Canadians will be deliberately limiting the amount of meat they consume. That number alone is enough to warrant a pilot product.

But the decision will not come without some criticism. Just ask A&W.

As A&W became the true ambassador for Beyond Meat and plant-based burgers in Canada, it also became the target of anger and a sense of betrayal in the beef industry. For more than a year, A&W was public enemy No. 1, and a taboo topic in beef country.

A&W has gone out of its way to make amends, including funding beef research projects, selling bison burgers, and partnering with professional football teams. But now, McDonald’s, which has supported and embraced Canadian agriculture for decades, could be seen by beef pundits as another company switching over to the dark side.

Our collective climate change concerns are real, and consumers are increasingly considering our planet’s well-being as they browse menus across the country and around the world. Even if the metrics used to assess Beyond Meat’s true environmental impact remain questionable, a greater number of consumers are seeing our overdependence on animal production as problematic.

Maintaining a portfolio of alternative protein sources will be key in food retail and service. What McDonald’s seems to understand with this rollout is how different its PLT should be. An increased focus on the distinctiveness of different options based on customer preference will be important moving forward. For McDonald’s, serving a meaty, high-quality Big Mac will be as critical to its core business as serving an appetizing and tasty PLT.

If A&W is seen as a disrupter in food service, McDonald’s could become the exclamation mark in an era of protein plurality. We will all gain from this shift, even the beef industry, that will be forced to position its product to appeal to a more urban and complex consumer.

It was only a matter of time before McDonald’s joined the plant-based dance. But the plant-based supply machine is nowhere near ready for McDonald’s, whose network is massive. Production capacity will need to align with McDonald’s market pull and this will require some time. But five years ago, few thought it possible for a plant-based protein producer like Beyond Meat to become a multibillion-dollar company, with products in over 40,000 retail outlets.

If McDonald’s develops the market for plant-based products, given what has happened in recent years, production will definitely pick up the pace.

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