Festival shows there’s an appetite for local food

Don’t know how to spend your summer vacation? Let your appetite be your guide.

Guelph Wellington Local Food — an initiative of the Guelph Community Health Centre — is tapping into the culinary tourism trend with its taste•real brand, which was officially launched at the Guelph Wellington Local Food Fest, held Sunday at the Ignatius Jesuit Centre.

“Agriculture is part of our history and heritage and we need to showcase it more,” said Gayl Creutzberg, outreach co-ordinator for taste•real. “There are lots of reasons to come to the region. Great food, locally grown and carefully prepared, is one more.”

The initiative begins with the local food map of member-organizations — everything from farms that are open to the public, pick-your-own places, restaurants and B&Bs that feature locally sourced food, farmers’ markets, greenhouses, and retailers.

Taste•real has linked with Guelph fab 5, a marketing partnership of Guelph’s well-loved festivals: the Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival, Hillside Festival, the Guelph Jazz Festival, Eden Mills Writers’ Festival, and the Festival of Moving Media.

Creutzberg said she hopes visitors who are coming for a festival will check out taste•real restaurants and destinations while in the area. Conversely, she hopes those who come following the culinary trail will check out the festivals and other attractions that make Guelph and Wellington unique.

“It’s farms, it’s restaurants, greenhouses, kitchen stores, hotels and B&Bs (bed and breakfasts),” she said. “There’s been a real coming together over this.”

Sunday’s local food festival was testament to that.

Tours of the Ignatius Centre showed food in the field — the outcome of many private and community projects that happen on the expansive property.

A walk through the marketplace featured booth after booth of produce grown at local farms and food-related products sold at local businesses.

And then there were the local restaurants, cooking up delicious, locally sourced food for visitors to sample.

“I care about locally grown, yes, especially since having kids,” said Shannon Noble of Guelph, who attended the event for the first time with her husband and two small children. “We try to eat local, organic food. It’s nice to come to this and find out what’s in the area.”

There were cooking demonstrations and even one on pickling and making jam. There were workshops on agriculture-related topics, such as how to keep a backyard chicken coop, or how to become a hobby beekeeper.

Some 1,800 people were expected to attend.

Maureen Comartin, of Windsor, was visiting family in Guelph and they all went to the food festival.

“We buy local in Essex County and my daughter buys local in Guelph. I think it’s a smart idea,” she said. “It’s certainly a wonderful atmosphere at the Ignatius Centre.”