Provincial initiative is intended to make it easier for consumers who want to buy food ‘Made in Alberta, by Albertans’
What’s in a name? Producers, food processors and consumers in Alberta are about to find out due to a provincial government initiative.
The proposed Made in Alberta, by Albertans label will help shoppers quickly identify food made in our province when choosing an item at their local farmers’ market or grocery store, said a provincial statement.
The initiative is being developed by Alberta Agriculture and Forestry. Consultations are planned for this summer to finalize the label, as well as prepare rules on how it will be used on different types of food products.
“Alberta is known as a place that produces safe, high-quality food,” Agriculture and Forestry Minister Devin Dreeshen said in the statement. “These days, people want to know where their food comes from, and this will make it a lot easier for them to choose food from Alberta.”
Things such as farm retail and farmers markets resulted in more than $1.2 billion in sales of locally produced food directly to consumers last year — more than double the amount in 2008, said the statement.
Consumer concerns about sustainability and nutrition had already heightened the demand for such food when the trend was further boosted by the COVID-19 pandemic, said Nicola Irving, president of the Alberta Farmers’ Market Association.
The experience of seeing grocery store shelves become empty of products such as meat due to outbreaks at food processing plants scared many Albertans, prompting them to go directly to farmers to secure supplies for their families, she said.
She estimated sales increased 30 percent at Irvings Farm Fresh, her farm southeast of Edmonton near Round Hill, Alta. She expected the trend will outlast the pandemic to become a permanent practice among Albertans, potentially helping reverse some of the industrialization of agriculture that occurred during the 20th century.
“Many years ago, there were small family farms and you bought your meat from people locally, whereas as industrialization happened, that sort of went away a little bit because it didn’t really matter where food was produced — it could end up in your grocery store, right?”
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The agri-food industry has focused on providing cheap, abundant products that consumers are realizing in some cases isn’t even real food, she said. As a result, Albertans are increasingly becoming convinced that quality and nutrition essential to maintain their health have been lost, she added.
Although local food can be more expensive, it “represents the true costs of what it is to grow an animal and raise it for meat, or the true cost of growing vegetables, and if people are paid properly for their labour… versus really, really cheap labour coming from countries where employees really are not looked after properly.”
The provincial statement said food and beverage processing employs about 28,000 workers in Alberta. Total sales last year were $15.5 billion, making the sector one of the largest employers in the province’s manufacturing industry.
“When Albertans buy Made-in-Alberta products from a farmers market, farmgate or the grocery, they are doing more than just supporting an industry and our economy — they are directly supporting another Alberta family and learning where their food comes from and how it was made, grown or raised,” said Dreeshen in an email. “This keeps money in our province and contributes to our economic recovery.”
Despite such positive outcomes, Irving said earlier proposals to better identify Alberta products failed to take root. Provincial officials “should look long and hard at what happened previously, and ask themselves why? Why did those campaigns fail, and what can they learn from them to make sure that this is successful?”
One thing Irving will push for is that the label initiative be expanded to include non-food products sold in farmers’ markets. About half the vendors in such markets sell things such as locally made crafts, she said, adding they were particularly hard hit by the pandemic due to restrictions on public gatherings limiting the number of customers.
