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About this Project
Acting as a catalyst in a vibrant Alberta local food industry, Explore Local is a team of experts servicing the direct-to-consumer industry who assist producers and small scale processors to capitalize on the demand for local food. The team achieves this through providing timely and targeted information, training and tools that support sound business and industry decision making; building networks through opportunities for clients and stakeholders; and encouraging industry led advocacy.
The Explore Local Producer Profiles project is a collection of business profiles focusing on producers operating in Alberta who sell their local food products direct to consumers through a variety of local market channels. These profiles encompass a variety of operations from urban agriculture to livestock to market gardens to processed food products. In addition, a variety of market channels were spotlighted – farmers’ markets, community supported agriculture (CSAs), on-farm sales, etc.
Antelope Creek Berry Farm
Gerald and Muriel Huber run Antelope Creek Berry Farm east of Brooks, Alberta. Their focus is on producing saskatoons (4+ varieties), sour cherries and raspberries, but they also grow black currants, strawberries, and chokecherries. Their most popular U-Pick crop is definitely strawberries. Read more...
Anthem Hills Family Farm
Jenny & Sean Robinson and Floyd & Barbara Snyder run Anthem Hills Family Farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) on a quarter section of land south of the village of Sangudo. 2016 was their first year of production offering 20 community supported agriculture (CSA) shares for 12 weeks. Read more...
Arno's Fine French Pastry
Arnaud Valade runs Arno’s Fine French Pastry in Edmonton. From cakes to croissants to eclairs, from cookies and chocolates to macarons, his products have a playfulness and creativity that are indicative of Arnaud’s distinct style. Read more ...
Brio Bakery
Brio Bakery is owned and operated by Todd Barraclough in Edmonton, Alberta. He focuses on natural levain artisan sourdough breads and viennoserie. Read more...
Broken Tine Orchard
Kreg and Lee-Anne Alde run Broken Tine Orchard southwest of Beaverlodge near the Alberta/British Columbia border. He grows roughly 19,000 haskap plants on 35 acres. While the market for haskap is still growing in Alberta, the berry is extremely versatile and well suited to growing in a northern climate. Read more...
Broxburn Vegetables & Cafe
Paul and Hilda de Jonge farm eighty acres of mixed greenhouse and field crops five kilometers east of Lethbridge, along Broxburn Road. During the summer months, U-pick berries and root vegetables are visible in the fields behind their home and greenhouses. The greenhouses themselves house peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers. In 2002 they renovated an existing barn to hold a produce store and café and are now open throughout the year, happy to serve you a bowl of their signature red pepper soup. Read more...
Buffalo Horn Ranch
Peter and Judy Haase run Buffalo Horn Ranch in Mountain View County, north west of Olds. They currently run 175 bison, 50 of which are bison cows. Their bison are all pure plains bison, not cross bred with wood bison, as they try to maintain pure plains bison as a species. Read more...
Calico Baking Company
Laurel Ferster and Zinovia Hardy run Calico Baking Company in Edmonton, Alberta. They make a variety of artisan sourdough bread, croissants of all kinds, and other inspired fine pastries. Read more...
Calico Farms
Krista and Grant Ball run Calico Farms near Blackie, Alberta. They raise the birds on land that has been farmed by Krista's family for four generations. Over the course of its 100 year history, the current chicken barn has previously been home to pigs, dairy cows, donkeys and beef cattle. Read more...
Campbell Garlic
Rachael and Rob Campbell own and operate Campbell Garlic outside of Lethbridge, Alberta. They grow hardneck, purple stripe garlic on seven acres of land. Read more...
Cultured Butter
Kristie Lee owns and operates Cultured Butter in Calgary. As her business name suggests, she creates a variety of French style cultured butters often inspired by fresh, local ingredients. Read more...
Dandy Joe
John and Irene Feddema own and operate Dandy Joe on a twenty-seven acre homestead south of Strome, Alberta which has been in the Feddema family since 1903. They grow dandelions and process the roots into tea and “coffee” products. Read more...
Dirt Boys
Dennis Scanland operates Dirt Boys out of backyard plots in Calgary. He battles quackgrass and grows beets, carrots, salad mix, Swiss chard, radish, kale, and squash. Read more...
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Erna's Berry Farm and Country Cafe
Erna Varekamp grows beautiful rows of saskatoons (two varieties) and black currants as well as rhubarb, raspberries and a few different varieties of cherries southwest of Bow Island, Alberta. Customers come to Erna's to enjoy picking their own berries in the orchard, eat delicious homemade meals that Erna herself creates in the cafe kitchen and play a round of mini golf in the extensive play area between the patio and the berries. Read more...
Fallentimber Meadery
The Ryan family runs Fallentimber Meadery just west of Water Valley. One of the few meadery operations in the province, their products are a unique blend of wine style meads, session meads, hybrid beer/mead braggots, honey and wax products. Read more...
Fireside Winery and Market Garden
Marci & Larry Heck own and operate Fireside Winery and Market Garden near Stettler, Alberta. They make wine from the wide variety of fruit grown in their five and a half acre orchard. Their crops include black currants, raspberries, Evans cherries, plums, saskatoons, strawberries, chokecherries, crab-apples, and rhubarb. Read more...
Frugal Bush Bunny CSA
Melanie & Grant Gallie run Frugal Bush Bunny Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), 5 minutes north of Warburg, Alberta. This is their first year running their 12 week community supported agriculture (CSA) and currently fill anywhere from 9-15 veggie boxes each week. Read more...
Fruits of Sherbrooke
Fruits of Sherbrooke is a non-profit organization run by Carol Cooper, Christina Piecha, and Al Cosh. They rescue unwanted local fruit in the Edmonton area and turn it into delicious jams, jellies, and sauces. Read more...
Greenberry Microgreens
GreenBerry Microgreens is an urban ag operation run by Daniel and Jasmine McAllister in the heart of the Hillhurst/Sunnyside communities in Calgary. They grow 30 different varieties of microgreens including sunflowers, pea shoots and arugula. With a product that involves intensive care and intuitive cultivation skills, Daniel and Jasmine are committed growers and incredibly dedicated to their small crops. Read more...
Honest Dumplings
Ray Ma and Chris Lerohl run Honest Dumplings in Edmonton, Alberta. With eight different core flavours (both meat and vegan) and an always changing selection of seasonal and limited edition dumplings, they're breaking into the Edmonton food scene in a way that takes Chinese food to a new level. Read more...
Kettle Crossing Farm
Bob Griebel and Sandy Easterbrook, along with their niece Tess Griebel run Kettle Crossing Farm and SweetMeadow Farmstead Cheese near Sundre, Alberta. Their beautiful quarter section of land has rolling pasture, forested valleys and is crisscrossed by the Community Creek and Fallentimber River. Read more...
Klein Farm
Emery Klein operates Klein Farm near Delburne, Alberta on the land his grandparents farmed. Klein Farm is truly a family run farm with the full involvement of Emery's parents, his children and his uncle Pat. Together these three generations raise poultry, run a commercial grain operation and produce saskatoons, black currants and chokecherries in their growing orchard. Read more...
New Oxley Garlic
Jackie Chalmers grows a large amount of garlic on a small amount of land. This year she’ll grow up to 6,000 pounds of porcelain variety garlic on around two acres of historic ranchland just west of Claresholm. Read more...
Rainbow Acres
Dave and Monica Turta run Rainbow Acres near Devon, Alberta. Though their customers often associate Rainbow Acres with their famous carrots and carrot products, Dave and Monica grow arguably one of the most diverse crop offerings in the province. Their fruit and berry crops include:
raspberries, high bush cranberries, haskap berries, sour cherries, strawberries, gooseberries, grapes, blackberries, goji berries, rose hips, saskatoons, blueberries, chokecherries, black currants, sea buckthorn, apples, pears, plums and apricots. Along with their famous carrots, they grow a variety of vegetables including: potatoes, celery, leek, chard, beets, celeriac, Brussels sprouts, cucumbers, zucchini, onions, garlic and squash. Read more...
Redtail Farms
Ian Griebel and Dana Blume are third generation farmers running Redtail Farms, 3 kilometers south of Castor, Alberta. They produce grassfed and finished beef, pork and chicken on 2000 acres of pasture and sell their meat directly to consumers as quarter, half and whole animals. Read more...
Sand Springs Ranch
Ty and Janice Shelton run Sand Springs Ranch north of Lac La Biche. They grow a variety of organic vegetables including: corn, carrots, kohlrabi, potatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, onions, garlic, tomatoes, lettuce, beans, beets, peas, radish, cabbage, melons and squash. They also raise grass fed pork and run a herd of 150 grass fed beef cattle. Read more...
Schipper Farms
Harm and Dee Schipper farm 3 miles east and 3 miles north of Bow Island. They have 480 acres of irrigated land for grains, two barns for their broiler chickens and 30,000 square feet of greenhouse where they grow microgreens, strawberries, lettuce, herbs, flowers and various other greenhouse products. Read more...
Shirley's Greenhouse
Dawn and Cameron Buschert run Shirley's Greenhouse east of Didsbury, Alberta. They offer greenhouse grown long English cucumbers, mini cucumbers, three varieties of peppers, seven varieties of tomatoes, basil, five varieties of lettuces and kale. They also grow a variety of field vegetables including carrots, potatoes, zucchini and onions. Read more...
Summer's Gold
Arlin and Gloria Loewen and family run Summer’s Gold in Crooked Creek. They grow an incredible variety of vegetables, fruits and herbs on their farm as well as running a 12 week Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and partnering with local meat producers to diversify their product line. Read more...
Three Sisters Juicing
Amie Petracek owns and operates Three Sisters Juicing in Lethbridge, Alberta. She produces cold-pressed, unpasteurized juices out of organic fruits and vegetables. Read more...
Trail's End Beef
Rachel and Tyler Herbert run Trail’s End Beef outside of Nanton, Alberta. They raise grass fed, grass finished beef on pastures in the foothills that stretch back through multiple generations of ranchers. They understand and respect the huge responsibility they have to care for their animals, be good stewards of the land and be open and accessible to their customers. They love being able to do what they think is best and what is right for their animals, for the land, for their family’s nutrition and then share that with other families. Read more...
True Bird
True Bird is run by Laura and Dan Bird outside of Crossfield, Alberta. On 10.5 acres of land they raise pastured, organically fed, soy free eggs, chicken and turkey. Read more...
Vital Green Farms
Joe Mans and his family run Vital Green Farms between Picture Butte and Nobleford. They’re the only cow dairy producer/processor in Alberta which means all their products are produced, packaged and sold from the farm. Read more...
Winding Road Artisan Cheese
Ian Treuer and Aurelio Fernandes own and operate Winding Road Artisan Cheese near Smoky Lake, Alberta. Their regular product line includes everything from butter cheese, to Swiss Appenzeller style cheese, to Queijo Fresco, and Greek style yogurt. Read more...
About this Project
Acting as a catalyst in a vibrant Alberta local food industry, Explore Local is a team of experts servicing the direct-to-consumer industry who assist producers and small scale processors to capitalize on the demand for local food. The team achieves this through providing timely and targeted information, training and tools that support sound business and industry decision making; building networks through opportunities for clients and stakeholders; and encouraging industry led advocacy.
The Explore Local Producer Profiles project is a collection of business profiles focusing on producers operating in Alberta who sell their local food products direct to consumers through a variety of local market channels. These profiles encompass a variety of operations from urban agriculture to livestock to market gardens to processed food products. In addition, a variety of market channels were spotlighted – farmers’ markets, community supported agriculture (CSAs), on-farm sales, etc.
Goals
This collection of profiles is a tool to celebrate the success of producers selling direct to consumers and the uniqueness of their food products as well as to inform consumers about local products and local market options. Meaningful relationships between consumers and producers are built on loyalty and trust, and this project strives to encourage consumers and producers to get to know each other and create real connections. The goal of the project is to present direct-to-consumer producers in an honest, straightforward and accessible way that promotes open communication and interaction.
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