WINNIPEG – Fast food could save the prairie farmer.
One in five meals in Canada eaten outside the house is ordered from the car. It only takes three weeks for McDonalds to serve one billion customers.
It would pay off for farmers if they could supply something more to these restaurant chains, Manitoba Agriculture employee Lynda Lowry told the recent Manitoba Farm Women’s Conference in Winnipeg.
She said the department is looking for ways to add value to what farmers produce, and suggested a small step could be to obtain the contract to supply fresh sandwiches to gas stations on provincial highways.
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She also noted that society is aging, with people producing fewer children but owning more pets. She cited an Agriculture Canada study of food trends that said 10 percent of what farmers produce in the western world becomes dog food. Birdseed has become a market in the past decade as bird watching grows in popularity.
As people become more health conscious, they are looking for food that helps them lower their weight, blood pressure and cholesterol. This means opportunities for prairie grain such as barley, flax and pulses.
Lowry said the question then becomes how pea flour and other grains, pulses and oilseeds can be used in other food products. More experimentation in the kitchen with recipes could produce niche markets for growers, she said.
Another potential profit area could be new crops such as the Nexera line of canola that produces an oil with no trans fats. One farmer in Manitoba is providing ediname, an immature soybean, to the Earl’s restaurant chain, where it is on the menu as an appetizer. Others are supplying stores and restaurants with marinated lamb skewers as a convenient meat.
Lowry said consumers are also more willing to indulge themselves with organic food, wine, special cakes and chocolates. Producers who can tap into those cravings will benefit.
Fruit could also boom as a functional food that fights cancer, diabetes and heart disease with its antioxidants and flavenoids. A study of Manitoba-grown fruit is analyzing its content and determining the best way to market it, whether as a raw or frozen fruit, beverage, hand lotion or inside other products.
Lowry said North American consumers are aware of the benefits of whole grains, high fibre foods and cholesterol-reducing oils and margarines. Where they lag behind other global consumers is their ignorance of the benefits of probiotics in yogurt or soy-based fermented beverages.
However, Lowry warned that to develop a market also carries the responsibility of supplying it.