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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.
You can find Fruits of Sherbrooke at the City Market Downtown at the 104th Street (outdoor) and City Hall (indoor during the winter) locations, Callingwood Farmers’ Market, St. Albert Farmers’ Market, and 124th St Grand Market as well as at various pop up and holiday markets in the Edmonton area. To find out more about Fruits of Sherbrooke and their products, check out their website and Facebook page.
How Fruits of Sherbrooke began:
In 2010, Christina and Carol began to talk about the fruits they saw lying on the ground and piled up in alleys. They felt it was a terrible waste to let this local food rot when there were hungry people in the city. This became the catalyst for their decision to do something about unwanted local produce and Fruits of Sherbrooke was born.
Christina began to harvest and organize the picking of unwanted fruit, while Carol created delicious recipes and cooked up the products. Shortly after they began, Al came alongside to take care of sales and marketing.
How they’re doing it differently:
While Fruits of Sherbrooke maintains a consistent line of 45 to 50 different jams, jellies, and sauces each season, there is always room for new ideas and they’re often experimenting with new product styles and tastes. Every single one of their products contains 60-100% local, rescued fruit. Carol likes to be innovative with the product flavours and produces delights like lime cardamom jelly, chocolate cherry jelly, strawberry rhubarb Sambuca jam and chipotle rhubarb ketchup.
Fruits of Sherbrooke currently operates out of the Westmount Community Hall where the community league has been extremely supportive of their operation. Typically the hall is abuzz with energetic volunteers; they are busiest during the summer when they have the largest amount of fruit coming in.
When the season for local apples is finished, they’re finding that the demand for their Fruit Stars products is still high so they have partnered with an apple grower in British Columbia who subsidizes half of the remaining apples they need. They also process some fruits down into juices which they can store and turn into jellies during the autumn and winter when the fruit season is done.
Their connection to the community:
The whole business structure of Fruits of Sherbrooke is built around the vision of bringing local fruit to hungry people. Carol, Al, and Christina see their involvement in Fruits of Sherbrooke as a way to give back to their community. Sales at farmers’ markets are used to cover their expenses like packaging, labelling and space rental. Other than their recently hired part-time chef, Fruits of Sherbrooke is run entirely by volunteers.
Being so reliant on volunteers to function, Carol, Al, and Christina welcome interested workers especially at harvest time. Most of their fruit is picked by Fruits of Sherbrooke founders and volunteers. At the height of apple season (mid-August to mid-September), they could make use of up to 20 volunteer fruit pickers a day. Anyone interested in volunteering is welcome to sign up on their website. If they choose, volunteers are allowed to take a share of what they’ve picked home with them.
One of the most prevalent fruits in the region are apples. Deciding to address the abundance of apples in Edmonton, they started a project called Fruit Stars. These apples are turned into applesauce, fruit leather, and dried fruit snacks which are donated by Fruits of Sherbrooke to E4C and to University of Alberta programs like Unwind your Mind. In return for donated product, the University of Alberta commits volunteers to help Fruits of Sherbrooke process, pack, and sell their products. Fruits of Sherbrooke is also part of the Community Service Learning program at the University of Alberta where they’re committed to providing students with a community experience.
The future of Fruits of Sherbrooke:
Carol, Christina, and Al enjoy the work they do for Fruits of Sherbrooke and plan to continue finding ways to rescue local fruit and get it into the hands of people who need it. They’ll continue to maintain their booth at markets and supply the handful of local restaurants that use and sell their products. In the future, they’d love to see more local restaurants ordering from them.
“The cycle is closed. We pick here, we produce here, it’s eaten here and any of our profit goes back into our local community.” – Al Cosh
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