Speaker: Barbara Emanuel Session: Building Systems for Local Production of World Crops: Opportunities and Challenges

1. World Crops Panel
Bring Food Home
Barbara Emanuel
November, 2013

2. Toronto Food Strategy Approach
 Everything in partnership with
others
 Leveraging resources
 Top down & bottom up strategies
for change
 Research & evaluation

3. Toronto Food Facts
1 in 10
Number of Toronto
households that are food
insecure
$8,001
Average annual income by
Ontario farmers from
agricultural activities
1.2 million
Visits to food banks in the
GTA in 2010
1 in 3
Toronto children are
overweight or obese

4. modern food paradox
we produce
or import
∼50
%
more
calories
than we
need
approx.
BUT
10%
often can’t
put enough
food on the
table

5. Ethno-racial Breakdown of
Population
Ethno-racial Breakdown of population

6. Toronto’s Challenges
Urbanization, 1M
Urbanization, 1M
people
people

7. What Bureaucracies Can Be Good At
Regulations
Good Ideas

8. Key Health Equity Issues in Food
• Affordability of food
• Access to healthy, high-quality, and
culturally appropriate food
• Needs of newcomers
• Basic food skills and knowledge
• Community participation in policymaking

9. Locally Grown World
Crops
MANY OF THESE
VEGGIES CAN BE
GROWN HERE

10. Partnership with Vineland
• Looking at continuum of World Crop regional
value chain – from commercial market
development to low income community
access
• Scale appropriate market development
• Promotion of locally grown world crops to
everyone

11. Key Community Research Findings
• Price, variety, freshness and convenience key
factors (research in Flemingdon/Scarb)
• Majority cooked culturally specific foods at home,
using traditional ingredients wherever possible
• Many felt the food in Toronto is “too big”, “picked
too early” and isn’t as flavourful compared to back
home.
• Since larger sized fruits and vegetables the norm in
North America, newcomer consumers may have
different priorities re: fresh produce.

12. Opportunity to Integrate with Other
Programs/Initiatives
• Looking at scale appropriate markets
• World Crops broker/aggregation role under
consideration to serve multiple markets.
• Opportunity to integrate with other
community programs, food strategy initiatives
and TPH programs

13. Healthier
Corner
Stores
Working with Existing
Small Food Retailers

14.  Approx 8 convenience stores in Toronto for
every supermarket

15. HCS Findings So Far
 Problem in Toronto is NOT quantity of food stores but
quality of retail in many areas
 Less healthy food retail envir’t common across Toronto
 Schools more likely to have fast food within 500m/1km
vs surrounding areas

16. Explanations?
 Density in problem areas
doesn’t fit with traditional
big food retail models (but
they’re trying to adapt)
 “Progressive” regulatory
legacies can impede
alternate food distribution
models today
 Little support for small food
enterprises

17. Kabul Market- Scarborough

19. Insights from Research So Far
 Wide variation in small food
store models
 Many practical barriers for
owners to integrating healthier
foods
 Residents value customer
service highly

20. Insights from Research So Far
 Very little institutional support exists for small-scale food retail
 Many store owners keen to serve community, provide healthier
and culturally appropriate foods
 Most successful examples prioritized positive relationships with
customers

21. Many Different Market Opportunities
• Small/medium chain and/or Independent
supermarkets (likely through OFT)
• Small food retail establishments (most
flexible)
• Institutional Buyers (schools, hospitals etc)
• Direct market environments (farmers
mkts)
• Community food programs (eg. MGFM,
FoodShare good food box)

22. Next Steps
• Implement a pilot initiative (after developing a
business plan)
• Continue partnership with Vineland and a
range of community and retail partners
• Integrate world crops in all food strategy
initiatives

23. Barbara Emanuel, Manager
Toronto Food Strategy
bemanuel@toronto.ca
416-392-7464