ARICHAT: With three of its 30 food producers now hailing from Richmond County and a potential food drop-off point under consideration for St. Peter’s, the Pan-Cape Breton Food Hub has made a pitch for the municipality to consider contributing $7,500 to the island-wide operation.
The Food Hub’s official coordinator, Alicia Lake, joined the project’s chair and Inverness municipal councillor Jim Mustard on February 27 to address the latest regular monthly meeting of Richmond Municipal Council. With 125 consumer members – including individuals, groups and businesses such as restaurants – located across Cape Breton and most of these expected to return to the project when it re-launches this spring, the three-year-old organization is hoping to increase its Richmond County presence on the producer and consumer sides.
Noting that the operation is still growing as it nears the end of its two-year pilot-project phase, Lake pointed out that the Food Hub had a Port Hawkesbury pick-up/drop-off point in 2016 and is currently considering the possibility of offering the same service in St. Peter’s, in addition to the arrival of the first-ever Inverness County pick-up/drop-off point in the weeks to come.
“The idea is that no producer should have to drive more than a half-hour to drop product off,” Lake declared.
“We really want to make it easier for the producers to sell food and for the consumers to get that food.”
While Mustard and Lake praised the efforts of local food producers that frequent farmers’ markets in the area, they suggested that the Food Hub can provide a distribution system that extends beyond the small customer base often found in such venues.
“If you go to three farmers’ markets a week, you’re not spending your time producing,” Mustard pointed out.
In response to a question from councillor James Goyetche regarding the reliance of many Isle Madame residents on supermarkets such as Arichat’s Charles Forrest Co-op for produce, Lake predicted that the Food Hub will not likely make inroads into these stores for “a few years,” given their ownership by larger food distributors such as Sobeys and Loblaws.
“Sobeys has taken over distribution [within Atlantic Co-op stores], so a lot of our members are not able to sell through that anymore, so that’s trouble as well,” Lake remarked.
“But at the end of the day, what we’re able to get locally is only a small amount… There are so many more products that you’re never going to be able to buy from local producers.”
Mustard suggested that Richmond County has more usable land than it may recognize in terms of food production, and pointed to the estimated 75,000 responses to a recent pitch by Whycocomagh’s Farmer’s Daughter to provide land to those willing to move to the area to work at the operation.
“I don’t think Whycocomagh’s got anything over you guys – I just don’t think so,” Mustard declared.
Richmond Warden Brian Marchand told the Food Hub delegation that their financial request would go under consideration during the county’s upcoming budget deliberations.