FORT LANGLEY, B.C. – Allan Christian found that his farm enterprise was most profitable when he kept all the pieces of the pie.
Christian is a farming member of a 50 acre co-operative near Fort Langley, in southwestern B.C.
He and five other farming members and about 60 non-farming shareholders each own a share in the land and facilities.
The Glen Valley Organic Farm Co-op is eight years old and has the goals of educating the public on co-operative land management and stewardship and how to farm in a sustainable manner.
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“Most of the members are from the city and don’t farm, but enjoy taking part in the co-op and knowing they have a role in rural life, a farming life,” Christian said.
Despite having many members in the co-op, and retiring the co-op’s mortgage this year, Christian’s farm shares the challenges of any other.
“You need to make a living growing your crops, marketing them and being able to do it today and tomorrow. I don’t care if you are running an organic farm in the Lower Mainland or a grain farm in Saskatchewan, the market challenges are the same,” he said.
“There’s generally somebody in the middle between you and the consumer and they often make more on your crop than you do,” said Christian, who grew up on his family’s farm at Rocanville, Sask.
Keeping that piece of the pie led to Christian’s leap of faith in the economics of agriculture and food.
“I was making some pies and selling them at the farm along with organic produce. People liked them and started ordering pies. It became a growing part of the farm,” he said.
A phone call from a bookstore-owning friend in Vancouver suggested the pies would be a popular product in the city. The friend had just moved his shop to a semi-vacant street near the University of British Columbia.
“The rent was reasonable. I hadn’t a clue about operating a bakery in the city. So I treated it like any other farm decision. I went blindly ahead after a quick look at the economics,” Christian said.
He said the skills needed to survive as a farmer, such as problem solving, repairing and building equipment and basic carpentry made him equally competitive in town.
“Fixing older equipment and keeping it maintained saves thousands (of dollars) in the restaurant business. I don’t have to wait two weeks to get something repaired,” he said.
Christian’s pie shop proved so popular that he expanded the business into a small coffee shop and finally a 60 seat organic restaurant.
“We just kept knocking holes in walls until now we’ve run out of walls,” he said.
The Aphrodite Café and Pie Shop produces 16 to 18 varieties of pie each day with customers buying single pieces to whole pies and cakes.
There is the restaurant and a catering and wholesale kitchen for food to go.
Christian makes the 45 minute trip from the farm to downtown Vancouver nearly every afternoon, bringing in fresh food from the co-op.
The economics of producing fresh fruit and vegetables can be challenging, but adding value through the restaurant makes both of his enterprises sustainable, said Christian.
To maintain farm cash flow in the winter, he keeps root vegetables in the ground and harvests them as needed. The farm freezes more than 1,500 kilograms of fruit for use in pies through the winter months.
“The biggest issue for farmers entering the food service business is the learning curve. It’s steep. You need to ask lots of questions and try to make only the inexpensive mistakes and stick it out.”
With 20 staff, Christian said he has a loyal customer base that has grown because of the high quality of his food.
“People told me do this, do that, do the other when it came to the food. They thought I should follow the trends. I wanted to serve food that I liked. Simple foods, very fresh. I stuck with that. Customers stick with us,” he said.
Whether it’s human resources, finance or the menu, Christian said being a farmer has brought insight to his business.
“You learn to follow your instincts and they are usually right. I learned that growing up. Some things don’t change. For instance, everybody likes pie.”
