minding your business Opportunity in our own backyard
Immigrants are a significant ‘emerging market’ for farmers, and they’re also influencing and changing the food preferences of people born here.
By Hugh Maynard C
anada is an exporting country, with nearly half our gross domestic product coming from
the goods and services we ship to other countries. Agriculture is no exception. Two-thirds of what we grow and raise goes to feed people elsewhere, particularly the United States. There is, however, an opportunity
at home that farmers would be well advised to keep an eye on. It’s not the baby-boomers; even as there are more of them, they will start to eat less as they – ahem – mature. It’s not young families, as they’re having fewer children ever later in life. And it’s not aboriginal peoples, proportionately the fastest growing demographic segment in the country. The emerging food market to tap
into is the new Canadians who will make up at least 30 per cent of the country’s population in the next 20 years. There are about 250,000 immigrants arriving in Canada each year and they bring with them a taste for cuisine from their home countries. They’re also influencing and changing the food preferences of people born here. Bok choy, Asian eggplant, halal
meats, naan breads, falafel, tahina and somosas are but a few of the food items preferred by cultural communities across Canada. Given that this market segment offers the potential of $10 billion in farm gate sales in the near future, now is the time to start planning to succeed in this promising market. Some producers have already read
the playbook and are getting to work. Jason Verkaik of Carron Farms raises vegetables in the rich, black-muck
18 British Columbia Berry Grower • Fall 2013
soils of the Holland Marsh north of Toronto. He has switched from exporting orange carrots to the U.S. to growing the Indian Red variety, in
response to the preferences of the increasing numbers of south Asians living nearby. (The orange carrot was cultivated by breeders in the Netherlands in the 17th century as a tribute to William of Orange who led the struggle for Dutch independence – but that’s another story.) Some communities in metropolitan Toronto already have more than 85 per cent of their population speaking a mother tongue other than English or French. Farmers like Verkaik have spotted the market potential of this demographic shift and have responded. What has been a market niche is rapidly becoming mainstream in the chain supermarkets. Given that food importers will chase this market opportunity if Canadians don’t, doing a bit of research and planning for alternate farm produce that will appeal to
new Canadians could pay handsomely
— Farm Credit Canada.
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