Toronto Archives | Country Guide

Royal Agricultural Winter Fair cancelled for 2020

Near-century-old annual ag showcase put off to 2021

By Dave Bedard June 25, 2020

Reading Time: 2 minutes Two years shy of its 100th anniversary, Toronto’s Royal Agricultural Winter Fair has been called off for 2020. Organizers said Wednesday the event, which was scheduled for Nov. 6-15 at Toronto’s Exhibition Place, has been cancelled “due to our ongoing concern regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.” First held in 1922, spearheaded by Ontario cattle producer W.A. […] Read more

Guide Business

A food tour of Toronto’s Kensington Market

When city dwellers get curious about where their food comes from, they take tours like this one to Toronto’s Kensington Market. Country Guide sent writer Steven Biggs to buy a ticket and answer the question: Should a farmer go too?

By Steven Biggs April 1, 2020

Reading Time: 7 minutes Our tour guide is Leo Moncel, and as he looks over the English-Chinese menu, he calls out, “Does anyone have dietary restrictions?” In a restaurant like this after everything we’ve seen on the stands and in the windows of Toronto’s Kensington Market, it makes us wonder. What could he mean? It turns out it’s the […] Read more

Livestock, Poultry/Eggs

Maple Leaf to consolidate Ontario poultry processing

By GFM Staff November 27, 2018

Reading Time: 2 minutes A new $660 million plant at London, Ont. will house Maple Leaf Foods’ Ontario fresh poultry processing operations by mid-2021 as the food processing firm prepares to shut three older facilities. Toronto-based Maple Leaf announced Monday it will build a 640,000-square foot plant at London, billed as “one of the most technologically advanced poultry-processing plants […] Read more

General, Machinery, Reuters

Walmart’s LatAm delivery app Cornershop eyes Canada

By Daina Beth Solomon November 15, 2018

Reading Time: 2 minutes Mexico City | Reuters — Cornershop, a Latin American grocery delivery app being acquired by Walmart, plans to expand into Canada early next year as a test market for the U.S., an executive for the three-year-old mobile app said. Walmart is buying Cornershop, which offers deliveries in Mexico and Chile, for US$225 million. The deal, […] Read more

General, Markets

Sobeys parent to buy fresh-food grocer Farm Boy

By GFM Staff September 24, 2018

Reading Time: 2 minutes The owner of the Sobeys and Canada Safeway chains has a deal in place to buy southern Ontario grocery retailer Farm Boy, a well known patron of the region’s producers. In a deal still subject to review by the federal Competition Bureau, Empire Co. announced Monday it will pay $800 million for the grocery chain, […] Read more

Crops

Ontario backs Mondelez’s Toronto bakery expansion

By Country Guide Staff April 19, 2018

Reading Time: 2 minutes One of the world’s biggest snack food companies is up for an eight-figure investment from the Ontario government to boost production at its Toronto plant. The province on Monday announced the Mondelez Canada bakery in East York will get up to $22.6 million from the Jobs and Prosperity Fund, by way of that program’s Food […] Read more

Crops, Fruit/Vegetables

Campbell to shut Toronto soup, broth plant

By Country Guide Staff January 29, 2018

Reading Time: 2 minutes Campbell Soup Co. will call a halt to all Canadian soup and broth production by mid-2019 when it closes the doors on its Toronto manufacturing plant. The Camden, N.J. company’s Canadian arm announced Wednesday it will close the plant in phases over a period of up to 18 months and move its production to three […] Read more

General

Metro plans automated distribution for Ontario

By Country Guide Staff October 12, 2017

Reading Time: 2 minutes One of Canada’s biggest grocery chains plans to build new hubs to distribute both fresh and frozen foods to its Ontario stores. Quebec-based Metro Inc. said Wednesday it expects to put up $400 million to modernize and automate its Toronto operations between 2018 and 2023, building two new facilities for fresh and frozen food distribution […] Read more

Dairy Cattle, Livestock

Gay Lea lays out dairy processing expansion plans

By Country Guide Staff November 21, 2016

Reading Time: 2 minutes A dairy farmer co-op on an aggressive growth track has mapped out its next four years’ worth of expansions and upgrades, starting with a storied processing plant in southwestern Ontario. Gay Lea Foods Co-operative on Wednesday announced a budget of $140 million over four years to set up what it describes as an “innovative nutrition […] Read more

For Rosario Riga and his three sons, 300 acres of chard, kale and other greens go through the food terminal from their farm just north of Toronto.

Fruit/Vegetables, Guide Business

The hustle and bustle of the Ontario Food Terminal

Handling over a million tons of produce a year, the Ontario Food Terminal is like agriculture’s Port of Vancouver in the east, and just as complex

By Lois Harris February 12, 2016

Reading Time: 7 minutes Tucked between a Shoppers Drug Mart and an overgrown hedge, the entrance to the Ontario Food Terminal is nearly impossible to find after you turn off the bustling Queensway in southwest Toronto — unless you know where you’re going. Yet every day, about 2,500 people in cars, half-tons, cube vans and tractor-trailers do know exactly […] Read more

Ontario to insure for crop loss due to lack of labour

U.S. livestock: Ham prices lead lean hog futures higher

Newfoundland farmers may shoot problem moose at night

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