Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Certification for Local Products?

Wow. Ottawa, you inspire me. Not only do you have fabulous, reasonably-priced, local-food restaurants, but I just found out about your 'certified local' program. This is how the Ottawa-based food blog, FoodiePrints, describes it:

In Ottawa, we have several farmer's markets whose vendors proudly sport Savour Ottawa posters (http://www.savourottawa.ca/). These posters denote that the producer or retailer has been certified via an audit by a third-party organization to produce local products or sell goods that are made from local products. Further, many of the locally-owned restaurants have already diversified their supply chains, pairing themselves with local farms. Some have even taken to growing their on produce in personal gardens. Many have even partnered with our local sustainable fin-fish and shell-fish supply.
What a fabulous idea! Wouldn't it be great if Montreal had something similar? The closest we get is the "Aliments de Quebec" logo that I'm noticing in supermarkets these days. While it is a valuable initiative, Quebec is a pretty big place. The label also isn't applicable to restaurants, which doesn't help me to choose establishments that are promoting local products and economies. I'd love to see the label expanded to include the tourism region of the producer (i.e., Aliments de Quebec - Montéregie) and a poster program for our local restaurants.

2 comments:

Lindsay Davis said...

WOW ~ That is amazing, such a unified effort on Ottawa's behalf.
Quebec really does have so many amazing producers who are focusing on sustainable, natural production. It would be nice to see a more organized approach taken on by a third governing party.

I know equiterre has amazing incentives to shop local including a local listing of farmers on their website. I wonder if there working towards this type of long term goal?

Amanda said...

Equiterre does amazing work in Montreal. They are almost single-handedly responsible for the availablity of fair trade coffee in many Montreal establishments and for getting CSAs off the ground in Montreal.

It'd be great we could replicate what Ottawa is doing. A sticker on an establishment window is much more passer-by friendly than listings.