Reading Time: 3 minutes Great conversations often happen over a great meal, and that’s just what the organizers of A Seat at our Table are banking on for their upcoming Canada Agriculture Day event in Olds. “In typical agricultural fashion, we have a tendency to present ourselves through facts, and the average consumer isn’t going to get that — […] Read more
Agriculture Day event aims to bond producers and consumers over dinner
Event to be held on Feb. 16 at Willow Lane Barn
Alberta companies head to Boston food forum
Reading Time: < 1 minute Anyone interested in exporting food or beverages to the eastern U.S. is invited to participate in Taste of Canada 2017 in Boston on June 5-6. “Taste of Canada is an agri-food buyer-seller forum where Canadian suppliers can showcase their food products in a tabletop setting while meeting one on one with pre- screened American importers, […] Read more
Small indulgences — the experience of food can be priceless
In the food business, less can be more if you understand your customer and the emotional side of food buying
Reading Time: 3 minutes I remember a story from years ago about a family-owned ice-cream shop in a small town. Folks came from long distances for ice cream because it was so delicious. Yet, the customer had one constant complaint — there was too much ice cream in the cone! The owners of that shop decided to listen to […] Read more
Learn the ins and outs of shelf life
Workshops scheduled for Jan. 10 and April 11
Reading Time: < 1 minute The Troubleshooting Shelf Life workshop takes place Jan. 10 in Lacombe and April 11 in Airdrie. The workshop is aimed at producers who sell at farmers markets or directly to consumers and “who want to understand food quality issues and how to determine the shelf life of food products.” Topics include defining what food quality […] Read more
Ghosts get elbowed aside on Pizza Night in Rowley
Reading Time: 3 minutes Whenever Rowley has faced oblivion, locals have always come up with a plan — sometimes mischievous ones — to save their dusty locale on the central Alberta prairie. The hamlet, located 38 kilometres north of Drumheller, was fading away in the mid-1970s, when a group of men staged the now famous break-and-enter party into a […] Read more
Food bank drive collects millions of meals
Reading Time: < 1 minute The recently concluded FCC Drive Away Hunger collected enough food for 6.7 million meals, far surpassing this year’s goal. The donated food was given to food banks, which assist 850,000 Canadians every month, with children accounting for 36 per cent of that number. There are more than 500 food banks in the country, with about […] Read more
Where’s the beef? Increasingly, it’s in the premium product section
Leave the lower-end market to other meats and ‘come to terms’ with the global push to reduce meat consumption, says ‘Dr. Food’
Reading Time: 3 minutes The beef sector needs to position its meat as a premium product and forget about trying to duke it out with farmed fish and commercial chicken production, says one of the world’s best-known food-marketing experts. Fish and chicken are “the two big meats” because they have the best feed conversion ratios, David Hughes said at […] Read more
Travel exposes you to foods you never imagined existed
World cuisine is incredibly varied, and sometimes it takes an iron stomach to avoid offending your hosts
Reading Time: 4 minutes The inflight magazine in front of me was titled “The Taste of Travel.” I started to laugh because not all experiences when travelling leave a good taste in your mouth. There were some that were particularly challenging and good manners dictate that one never offends the host by passing on a dish. The setting was […] Read more
Explaining agriculture — one sign at a time
Reading Time: < 1 minute Consumer interest in how food is produced is at an all-time high — but most people don’t really know what they’re looking at when driving through farm country. But Agriculture for Life has come up with an innovative campaign called ‘What’s in the Field?’ to address that. The idea is simple: Producers register on the Ag […] Read more
‘Three times a day, you need a farmer’ — a phrase that says a lot
It’s not just the food we produce — farming is much deeper and more meaningful than that
Reading Time: 3 minutes My grandfather used to say, “Once in your life you need a doctor, lawyer, policeman, or preacher but every day — three times a day — you need a farmer.” To some this may be a catchy phrase but to others it has a deeper meaning. We were working on a school project, Grandpa and […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
