DECEMBER 2018 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC


Farmers, chefs cook up deals at


networking event Logistics, bureaucracy key hurdles in building markets


by PETER MITHAM VANCOUVER – An event


designed to help farmers from around the province connect with chefs and restaurants underscored the challenges bureaucracy and logistics pose to greater sales. “Every Chef Needs a


Farmer, Every Farmer Needs a Chef,” organized by the BC Ministry of Agriculture at the Sheraton Wall Centre in Vancouver, attracted more than 280 participants, including nearly 130 farmers and food producers. BC Fresh, BC Cattlemen’s Association and 4-H BC were among the exhibitors, as well as Parry Bay Sheep Farm, Klippers Organics and the Fraser Valley Hazelnuts. The event included three panel discussions that explored the opportunities for chefs and farmers, given the growing appetite for local food.


But when a panel of farmers was asked what the main barrier to building relationships with chefs and a market for their produce is, many said logistics. On the one hand, growers who don’t live near a city aren’t able to supply restaurants as often as needed. On the other, the restaurants are often


squeezed for space and can’t hold stock for extended periods. “A lot of them are


struggling with space to store product,” says Kevin Klippenstein, who travels twice a week during the summer from Cawston to deliver produce to Vancouver. “Usually, they don’t have room to store a lot of product and they’re going through it quickly. So it’s how do we get our product into Vancouver on a more regular basis where chefs have access to it?” Similar challenges face


Michelle Rattray and Mark Cormier of Glorious Organics Co-op in Langley. The co-op requires a minimum order of $100, but not all restaurants have space to handle that volume of produce. When that happens, the cost comes home to roost. “The cost lands back on us, which is something we’d like to avoid,” Cormier says. Distance from markets


presents another logistical challenge for livestock producers, according to Mark Roth of Uncle Mark's Custom Meat Cutting in McBride. Roth runs a custom slaughter business for local farmers who are 200 kilometres from a licensed abattoir.


“But that’s only for personal


11


Ocean Wise executive chef Ned Bell, left, and David Speight, culinary director for UBC Food Services, discuss the opportunities for new chefs in BC’s local food market at Every Chef Needs a Farmer. BCMA PHOTO


use – you can’t sell that to a chef or to a restaurant or to a grocery store with our current legislation, because it’s uninspected,” he says. “We’ve been working on different ideas on how you get a farm- harvested animal to market.” With all the technology


available in 2018, he thinks it should be easier to make the connections. One option would be to


have an inspector attend a farm via video conference. That could open markets allowing producers in remote regions to feed into larger


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markets. “It would allow chefs to


work with individual farmers, and they could work with very small farmers and those farmers could still get their animals to market,” he says.


One good lead ...


Most farmers have found that one good connection will naturally lead to others. A chef who becomes the farm’s champion will open doors the farm wouldn’t have expected. David Gunawan, originally


of West on Granville Street in Vancouver and now of the


aptly named Farmer’s Apprentice, did that for the Klippensteins. The result was that they were able to pare participation in farmers’ markets. “[David] was just pushing


our product and he went to other restaurants … and said, ‘You gotta use their product,’” Kevin Klippenstein says. “Finally, we had enough chefs wanting to buy our product and wanting to get it delivered that we actually got rid of our Wednesday-


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