OCTOBER 2019 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC


South Vancouver food hub to


connect farmers Commissary Connect is the cornerstone of a provincial network


by RONDA PAYNE VANCOUVER— The BC


Food Hub Network is developing a province-wide network to connect producers, processors, facilities and innovators with the aim of creating new value-added BC products and generating interest in local food.


The establishment of the


program’s second hub, in Quesnel, was announced in August with the province committing $500,000 to create a shared-use facility. The region was chosen to


provide alternative economic opportunities after facing the devastation of wildfires in previous years. “As we get more of these


food processing hubs online across the province, there’ll also be a chance for growers and farmers to tap into what the ingredients are that [food processors] need and grow specifically for the food processing sector,” says BC agriculture minister Lana Popham. “It’s really connecting those dots.” BC’s food hub program is a


joint project of Vancouver- based Commissary Connect Innovations Inc. and the province in collaboration with UBC (home of the future Food Innovation Centre) and other industry partners to provide information, processing capacity and innovation. Commissary Connect’s


kitchens give food processors space to operate where they share equipment and only pay for what they use. The Quesnel space will tie into the same model over the next two years to create an integrated network. The model allows food-processing businesses to take advantage of shared space without the capital investment to build it. Commissary Connect


founder and CEO Sarb Mund started the first kitchen on Industrial Avenue in Vancouver in 2013. This was joined by the confectionary kitchen a few doors down in 2017 and a kitchen on Laurel Street in south Vancouver in January 2019. By May, the Laurel Street kitchen was operating at full capacity. Mund, a Chartered


Professional Accountant, started a food truck in 2011


and understood the sector’s challenges: there wasn’t much support for those in food processing and the overhead to establish a commercial kitchen is significant. The kitchens on Industrial


Avenue are geared towards startups, while Laurel Street is for those growing and expanding. It has a test kitchen and offices upstairs and production facilities downstairs.


Mund has proprietary,


patent-pending technology in place that schedules, tracks and meters kitchen usage 24/7. It will eventually allow for tracking of ingredients to deliver economies of scale and opportunities for BC farmers and will be used by the other hubs across the province that incorporate shared processing facilities. The technology is the


heart of the kitchen model, according to Mund. “The [kitchen] sites are a


byproduct of the technology,” he says.


Another element of the Laurel Street location is that


11


Juli Rogerson, left, has developed a bone broth business using shared commercial kitchen space created by Sarb Mund and supported by the province’s new BC Food Hub Network. RONDA PAYNE PHOTO


Mund is there to advise processors and connect them with others within the hub who can help. The advisory service is funded in part by Vancity. Additionally, Commissary


Connect has a pop-up space for multiple purposes and a food truck stationed at


Robson Square to give up- and-coming brands exposure in one of the busiest areas in BC.


“This has never been done


anywhere in the world,” he says of the BC Regional Food Hub. “There’s been nothing to hold all the hubs together. There’s power in numbers.”


Room to grow One of the Laurel Street


kitchen’s users is Juli Rogerson, co-owner of Georels Bone Broth Company Ltd. It started in 2015 and was about to grow out of the kitchen on Industrial when the


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