Producers participate in a workshop designed to help find market opportunities with restaurants
LEDUC, Alta. — In a time when local, regional and Canadian food is promoted in grocery stores, restaurants and farmers markets, it’s hard to remember when local wasn’t cool.
Jasmin Kobajica does.
The former chef at Edmonton’s Chateau Lacombe said his customers were not amused in the late 1990s when he switched rack of lamb and cedar plank salmon for local bison and lamb.
“I wasn’t met with open arms. Customers were angry,” said Kobajica.
“It was a tough time. Not many people were embracing the concept of local. Educating those customers took years.”
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He said he made it his mission to promote Alberta’s story through food.
“When tourists come and look at a menu, they see who you are.”
Kobajica, who is now culinary director at Fort Edmonton Park, said customers look for local food at restaurants.
He said farmers are one of the best advertisements for local food.
“When people can put a face to a product, it adds extra value,” Kobajica told farmers during an Alberta Agriculture Explore Local event designed to help producers get their food into restaurants.
His 11 venues require 700 food items, and he said he doesn’t want to deal with 15 farmers to find 15 different vegetables. Instead, he finds it easier to go through distributors specializing in local food.
Christine Anderson, a new venture specialist with Alberta Agriculture, said the department had a waiting list of farmers wanting to take the day-long course.
“More producers are looking at what are the opportunities out there,” she said.
“We’re seeing this demand. When you put on a workshop and you can fill a room and have a waiting list, that’s great.”
Part of the attraction for producers was sharing ideas with other producers who already have their produce in local restaurants, she said.
Marius De Boer said chatting to chefs and restaurant owners about his local food is not a chore.
“I get a kick from a restaurant that wants to make local products,” said De Boer, who sells his Four Whistle Farm’s beef, lamb, pork, chicken and duck to 25 Edmonton restaurants.
“Selling to restaurants is a labour of love.”
Selling whole animals to restaurants is difficult, so De Boer, who farms near Millet, Alta., sells the other cuts at two farmers markets. He also buys produce from his neighbours to resell at farmers markets.
De Boer delivers fresh meat to the restaurants each week, even stocking the cooler shelves as an added service.
“I just show up and put it in their coolers,” said De Boer, who has developed a good rapport with his customers.
“There are so many opportunities, but I am maxed out.”
Deb Krause of Vesta Gardens in Thorhild, Alta., said she spends the winter researching food trends around the world to know what to grow for home gardeners and chefs.
“Chefs want to be partners with people who know what is going on it the world,” said Krause, who supplies vegetables for chefs and consumers through a consumer shared agriculture partnership.
“What is the next big thing in Europe is what those chefs are excited about, and can we do that in our little corner of Alberta?”
Spruce buds and cattail hearts are her top-selling foraged foods for restaurants that specialize in unique food.
Krause often invites chefs to forage in the forest for the food that will end up on their menus.
Looking for a niche is key, said chef Ben Staley, who recently returned from eating his way through trendy restaurants in Scandinavia.
He said Edmonton, with a similar latitude and climate to Scandinavia, is ready for the Nordic cuisine of reindeer lichen, beef tartar with ant toppings and sugar cured egg yolk on birch tree bark crumble.
Staley said chefs are looking for the unusual from farmers, said Staley.
In Europe, high-end restaurants in Europe leave carrots and potatoes in the ground for a year and serve them as “vintage” vegetables.
He encouraged producers to grow an experimental plot in their gardens and entice him with unusual vegetables.
“I don’t want the same carrot or breed of pork,” he said.
