EDMONTON – For the third year in a row, Alberta Agriculture’s Farm Business Development specialists have helped Albertans take their new food products from farm kitchens to stores.
Taste for Success gives entrepreneurs help developing labels, assists with marketing and puts them in touch with technical experts.
This year, 18 new products were chosen to take part in the Taste of Success program. During a recent workshop, 12 of the participants were in the city to learn about marketing their products.
(For more on Taste for Success products see page 35.)
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Gaylene Patko has simplified every cook’s spice cabinet. The Edmonton cook has combined most spices everyone uses into two spice mixes.
Patko said one day she got lazy and put all her spices into one big jar to create a blend of spices and an Italian spice mix for meats, gravies, soups and stuffings.
In a Pinch Spice Blends have been such a hit that she has been forced to stop growing the herbs from her back yard and buy bulk to fill her requests. What started as a Christmas gift idea has become almost full time.
Eventually she hopes her spices will be in stores across Canada.
Barb Davenport has revived an old family recipe and turned it into a “small indulgence” for busy people.
When Davenport moved from Manitoba to Okotoks 18 months ago she began producing her Butter-Nut Crunch snack for the Christmas market, but it has been such a success she has continued to sell it at farmers markets throughout the year.
The mixture of roasted pecans and almonds blended with gourmet popcorn and creamy butter toffee has been called a “culinary orgasm” because it’s so decadent, said Davenport.
It didn’t take a psychic to foresee the crash in the ostrich market, but it was still difficult to convince producers to slaughter ostriches worth thousands for a less lucrative
future meat market.
Lyn Layton and her husband Tom have joined 43 other ostrich producers to form Alberta Ostrich Products Ltd.
Because of their co-operative approach they were able to access a development grant to do research at the Food Processing Development Centre in Leduc. Working with the scientists, they developed three new meat products including ostrich medallions wrapped in bacon.
By targeting the hotel and restaurant industry they hope to use 100 birds a month to supply the demand for their high-quality ostrich products.
Prepackaging the meat allows the group to provide a consistent product and a way of using the non-prime ostrich cuts.
Growing up in the West African country of Ghana, Marion Nathan-Dove watched her mother making tasty goat meat buns for festivals and special occasions.
At her new home in Rocky Mountain House, Alta., Nathan-Dove puts an Alberta twist to her mother’s recipe with the same success. Their popularity at a Grey Cup party last year encouraged Nathan-Dove to take her buns to a farmers market where she sells 20 dozen Marion’s Yummy Meat Filled Buns a week.
As the demand for her buns grows, she hopes to develop more fillings. She wants to add chicken and turkey and have a spicy meat sandwich. With a microwave in every office or school, she says her buns are a nutritious luncheon snack everyone can enjoy.
Professional cooks Ross Wotherspoon and Sylvia Bakker have discovered one of the biggest culinary nightmares. Most people can’t make gravy.
“We found when we were in the business that half the people couldn’t make a decent gravy without lumps,” said Wotherspoon, who along with Bakker have developed a one-step gravy powder.
The pair have three gravies: Alberta Prime Beef Gravy Mix, Alberta Perfect French Fry Gravy Mix and Alberta Premium Poultry Gravy Mix.
Because the packet has a long shelf life it’s suited for single people making a small amount of gravy.
Mary Christie has no visions of tackling the food giant Kraft, but she sees a future for her Swiss Salad Dressing.
The uniquely flavored salad dressing has become popular at Christie and her husband’s Canmore restaurant Boccalino Grotto, so they decided to bottle it.
For the past 11 years, guests at the restaurant raved about the Swiss Salad Dressing.
She began to sell the dressing and customers haven’t used it only on green salads. They use it as a barbeque marinade and even on potato salad.
What do you get when you cross a wiener with a smoky? You get a Sport Dog that Darren Bauer and his partner Peter Crossley hope jumps off the shelf into a hot dog bun.
Using meat from their Rocky Mountain House processing plant, they wanted to fill what they considered a gap between the hot dogs and smokies.
They hope to soon have the Sport Dog in Calgary Co-op stores and the pure pork product in convenience stores, sports arenas and golf courses.
A story in a 25-year-old issue of Mother Earth News about a native woman who made syrup from birch trees was the catalyst that started Warren Bard on his new career.
Bard taps birch trees at his brother’s farm in Egremont, Alta., and at the Devonian Botanical Gardens in Devon, Alta., to make his syrup. It takes about 40 litres of maple sugar to make one litre of maple syrup. It takes 115 litres of birch sugar to make one litre of birch syrup.
“It’s a very unique and very expensive product,” said Bard of River Valley Syrup in Edmonton.
The Canadian Culinary Team now competing in Singapore is using his syrup in its menu. Because of its expense, Bard is targeting high-end restaurants, hotels and tourist shops.
