ROUND HILL, Alta. – Canada might be known for beautiful scenery, tasty beef steaks and good straight roads, but to the English palate at least, a good pork sausage can be tough to find.
When Alan and Nicola Irving emigrated from England in 2005, they were ready to adopt Alberta as their new home, but they missed their sausages.
“There’s a distinct lack of good quality pork sausages,” Alan said, while mixing up a batch of sausages in their on-farm production facility.
The Irvings started making sausage after a neighbour near their first home at Vimy asked them to make deer sausage. The Irvings didn’t have a deer, but they could get their hands on pork and had a try at homemade sausage.
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“It was relatively successful,” said Nicola, who shared the sausages with friends and neigh-bours. They then began selling sausages through farmers’ markets and testing new recipes and flavours.
“Farmers’ markets let you do a little. It doesn’t cost a lot to get the kitchen set up and running,” said Nicola.
Developing their Irving Farm Fresh Meats business was also a way of allowing Alan to stay home more. As a long haul truck driver, he was often away for 10 days at a time.
A trip to Fort Nelson, B.C., from Ft. St. John, B.C., during the winter encouraged the couple to turn their hobby into a business.
On the four-hour drive, Alan saw only one other vehicle, making him wonder what would happen if he hit the ditch.
The couple took advantage of the growing interest in locally produced food and a desire for high quality pork sausage.
Selling food through the farmers’ markets has been an education.
Many people told the couple they don’t eat sausages because they’re greasy. Other customers requested flavours or recipes they remembered eating in Britain.
They now have nine regular flavours of sausage: Lincolnshire made with fresh sage, a Cumberland mixture of nutmeg, mace and pepper, pork and leek, breakfast, maple, Italian, sweet chili zinger, habanero chili and rosemary and garlic.
“We’ve responded to what the customer is asking for,” said Nicola, who often tries new recipes on her young family.
“We still have loads more recipe ideas,” she said.
Beginning in May, they are featuring a recipe of the month to test the reception of possible new sausage flavours like sun-dried tomato and basil.
“If it’s a success, it will go mainstream.”
A year ago, the family bought Berkshire hogs, the popular heritage breed prized for its flavour. The growing sausage business and new hog business meant the family needed to move from an acreage to a larger farm location, ideally within one hour’s drive of Edmonton.
The Irvings moved to Round Hill last fall and built a farm shop with under floor heating and its own well and septic system. With several large outbuildings and 80 acres, there’s enough room to raise more hogs.
“When we finally opened in January, it was just like heaven,” Nicola said.
In Alberta, most farmers’ markets are seasonal, operating only in the summer months. To even out their income, the family began selling their product through deli stores, direct sales to customers and in high-end restaurants.
During the summer, they plan to travel to about half a dozen farmers’ markets.
“The customers appreciate local, good quality food and are prepared to pay for it,” she said.
“There really isn’t a better way to get produce to customers. The markets are definitely here to stay and will become increasingly important and we’ll focus on the ones that are best for us,” she said.
Now that spring has arrived, they plan to set up outside paddocks for grazing pigs, build a smokehouse to cure the bacon and work with the food scientists at the Food Processing Centre in Leduc to fine tune their recipes.
