Local Flavours Products & Services Co-operative

Member Profile

Local Flavours is a co-operative effort by caring food growers, producers and supporting people who allow our belief in having a wide variety of personal quality food and edible creations available to us all. We enjoy food! There are many great stories behind the food. These are people who love what they grow and create.

First, a little bit of fun retro history. Found a 1904 Gill’s Student Geography book from England and the part on Canada is interesting to look back on from a 100-year old perspective. Remember this was published just before Alberta & Saskatchewan became provinces!

• “The soil of Canada is the source of her greatest wealth and strength. Her forest lands, her smiling farms, and her rich and vast rolling prairies, offer the greatest attractions to the agriculturist.”
• “The leading field crops produced are wheat, oats, barley, rye, maise, potatoes, turnips, mangold, peas, buckwheat, flax, etc.”
• “The garden fruits and vegetables are similar to those in England. Near the large towns market gardening is an important domestic industry.”
• “Fruit-Growing, both for home consumption and export is a very important industry in Canada, the principal fruits raised being apples, pears, gooseberries, currants, raspberries, peaches, grapes, melons, tomatoes,
• “Large ranches have been successfully established on the great grass-lands at the base of the Rocky Mountains, and when these have had time to develop, their produce will be enormous.”
• “The Canadian fisheries, marine and inland, are probably unrivalled in the world. The best salmon, trout, bass, pike, pickerel, white-fish, perch, etc., are plentiful in all the lakes and rivers.“
• “The chief exports, in order of value, are timber, grain and  flour, cheese, living animals, preserved fish, eggs, furs, coal, canned lobsters, potatoes, gold, etc. Annual value, nearly 40 ½ millions, sterling, including bullion and specie.”

“The soil of Canada is the source of her greatest wealth and strength.” Some things may have changed, but that is a key value we still believe in.

A great example of a “smiling farm” is the Pastula Farms and just to keep the English connection going, when the Queen used to cruise into Victoria in the Yacht Britannia, she would order their potatoes ahead of time. They still grow the same great veggies today.

We will be expanding this site as we ourselves grow. You will find the stories and the people behind many great local food products. Local Flavours is not just a cute saying, but it is also our assurance of quality food that you can taste and trust. Besides the excellent quality, when you ‘buy local’, it has been proven that your dollars actually turn just shy of five times within your community. You also support food alternatives…like tomatoes you can smell and taste. Organic, or not, if your food has traveled great distances, there is an environmental impact. We really just want to ensure that 100 years from now….we still have many “Smiling Farms” across Canada.

Visit online: www.localflavours.coop