Farmer Jason Verkaik sees a business case for diversity in the vegetable patch.
Carrots and onions are his mainstay crops. But this third-generation grower is also experimenting with exotic produce such as Indian red carrots, Jamaican pumpkins and Mexican tomatillos at his Bradford, Ont., farm. This year, he’ll try his hand at fuzzy melons.
Beyond his own hankerings for such foods, Mr. Verkaik, who is of Dutch heritage, says demographic change is creating a burgeoning business opportunity for Canadian farmers at a time when major retailers including Wal-Mart Canada Corp. and Sobeys Inc., are experiencing growing demand for world crops. While recent immigrants are largely fuelling this trend, many exotic vegetables are already considered mainstream fare in cities across Canada.
“It really does start with that ethnic culture,” Mr. Verkaik says. “It starts there, but there are [business] opportunities to expand it further.”
Experts are still trying to quantify the market’s full potential, but one estimate pegs domestic sales of exotic vegetables at roughly $800-million a year. The bulk of that produce is imported from the Caribbean, South America and Asia. But with demand booming, Canadian farmers have a fresh incentive to carve out a meaningful slice of that market by diversifying their crops.
Although cooler Canadian climates can present a production challenge, scientists spearheading world crop research at the Vineland Research and Innovation Centre near Niagara Falls, Ont., say a surprising number of exotic vegetables can be successfully grown across the country.
As they strive to get an upper hand on Mother Nature in the field, those researchers are also collaborating with farmers and retailers on expanding the domestic market for locally grown exotic vegetables and export opportunities to the United States. Their overarching goal is to increase the size of the market by making many of these South Asian, Chinese and Afro-Caribbean vegetables as mainstream as prepackaged sushi.
“Sushi was super exotic stuff 15 years ago and now you buy it everywhere – at the supermarket counter and all over the place,” says Vineland’s chief executive officer Jim Brandle. “It is sort of ubiquitous, good-for-you snack food. So, here is the same strategy.”
While a strong Canadian dollar makes vegetable imports cheaper, farmers and retailers are wagering that consumers will pay a premium for fresher, locally grown produce. That’s partly because new Canadians, many of whom are vegetarians, spend up to 40 per cent of their food budgets on vegetables, according to the research from the University of Guelph.
The trick, though, is consistently growing domestic crops that are as good – or better – than immigrants can get “back home.”
“It is a pure sensory response in a supermarket,” Vineland research director Michael Brownbridge says. “You see it: ‘Ooh. I want to buy it.’ You touch it. Different people, they smell it, they feel it, they’ll want to touch it. So you have to pass all of those criteria to get that into somebody’s basket for sale.”
Mastering the crops (and ultimately the taste) is a critical challenge, since importing seeds from other countries requires certification. Additionally, there is a lack of registered pesticides for many ethnic vegetables and the need for hand labour can increase costs.
Getting the science right, however, could prove highly lucrative to Canada’s entire food industry, which encompasses farmers, food processors, grocery distributors and retailers. Ethnic grocery stores are already ringing up annual sales of up to $5-billion and growing at a clip of 15 to 20 per cent a year, according to CIBC World Markets Inc.
