Reading Time: 3 minutes As more innovative uses for pulses are explored in response to global demand for healthier food products, Canadian pulse producers may look forward to increasing demand for their crops. Together with Warburtons, the U.K.’s largest bakery brand, the Canadian International Grains Institute is undertaking its most comprehensive investigation into quality characteristics and functionality of pulses […] Read more
Building a complete protein package
Bringing wheat and pulses together for healthier baked products — a formula for new opportunities
VIDEO: Defining food fraud
Reading Time: < 1 minute Sylvain Charlebois, Dean of the School of Management at Dalhousie University and food systems expert, says food fraud is becoming a greater public concern and consumers are just beginning to learn what it actually means.
The Farm Network takes farm food products beyond local
The Farm Network is pioneering a new category of food business, helping farmers grow their sales of local products to reach commercial scale
Reading Time: 5 minutes When Tyler Ferguson found a distinct gap in Canada’s local food system, he decided to fill it by starting his own sales, marketing and distribution company focused on getting more food products from the farm into retail. That was the first step. But only the first step. “I noticed that a lot of local food […] Read more
Stepping up the cider game
It’s a great time to lead in the cider business, and this farm group aims to take their Broken Ladder brand international
Reading Time: 9 minutes Back when my grandparents’ generation of Okanagan farmers first formed a fruit growing co-operative to market their fruit, farmers made a good living growing and selling crops on a commodity basis. Sure, some of that fruit ended up in cans, in fruit leather or in other value-added applications, but that all happened after the fruit […] Read more
Uber-stores for food
Businesses like Marcia Woods’ FreshSpoke are figuring out how to connect Canadian farmers with the consumers looking for ways to buy from them
Reading Time: 4 minutes Marcia Woods’ frustration at not being able to buy the high-quality food that she knew was being grown right down the road evolved into an online business that not only connects farmers with wholesalers, but also solves their transportation and cash-flow headaches. Coming from a long line of Oxford County farmers in Ontario, Woods, who’s […] Read more
What do your customers care about?
Check out the mainstream books, films and other media that are shaping what consumers think about what you do
Reading Time: 4 minutes Gluten-free, organic, GMO, free-run — these just hint at the kind of vocabulary being tossed about by consumers today. Packed with good intentions and a little knowledge, such notions are warping the demand for food products, and they may be laying a path for legislation. Never before has there been so much being written, said […] Read more
Making ethnic markets pay
In Toronto alone, consumers are buying $400 million a year of imported ethnic vegetables. Could it make sense to grow them here?
Reading Time: 5 minutes Edamame, okra, bitter melon, quinoa, Chinese long eggplant — all these are edible crops that you’d have had a hard time finding on the country’s store shelves 50 years ago, let alone growing in Canadian fields and greenhouses. They’re still crops that few Canadian farmers know about, and that even fewer have considered growing. But […] Read more
Adding nutritional punch to instant noodles
The go-to quick meal for university students could be improved with Prairie peas
Reading Time: 3 minutes Quick, easy and tasty, but a bit too high in fat and salt and a bit low in nutrition. Ever-popular instant noodles could be improved, based on results of Canadian International Grains Institute research focused on developing new uses for Canadian pulses. Since 2014 Cigi has been conducting a four-year project funded by Pulse Canada […] Read more
A sweet sweet story
How Canada's first large-scale importer and distributor of halal gummies was born
Reading Time: 3 minutes Growing up, Lindsay Contractor’s sweet tooth was finely tuned to the nuances of fluffy marshmallows and chewy gummies. But when she began practicing Islam in 2011, those sugary treats took a sour turn. “I grew up in a world full of lots of gummies and marshmallows, and I never thought twice about eating them, I […] Read more
Heading off a stem rust pandemic
Only two older wheat varieties are resistant to Ug99, a devastating race of stem rust which threatens to spread around the world
Reading Time: 5 minutes Working under tight security in their plant science laboratory at Morden, Man., Tom Fetch and his scientific colleagues look as if they’re handling extremely hazardous material. After changing into hospital scrubs in a locker room, Fetch and his team deactivate an alarm system and go through four doors to enter the laboratory. The Level 3 […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
