Food Insider

Julia Smith has a problem. Despite litters of fast-growing piglets and surging demand for her pork, she can’t find an abattoir that can slaughter them before December. Demand for local meat has surged during the pandemic, leaving the province’s abattoirs booked months in advance and many small-scale producers struggling.  

Elizabeth Moore, an Indigenous food gatherer, works with schools, hospitals and the greater community to increase food security and knowledge in the area.

Eating local on university campuses is often difficult, but it will soon be getting easier for many B.C. post-secondary students.

But the survey done by Research Co., found 19 per cent of people in B.C. are steering away from ordering food because of worries surrounding COVID-19.

From farm to fork and beyond, food is responsible for between 21 and 37 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Yet despite growing awareness that changing diets can help the climate, many people still don’t know how to eat more sustainably.

The food policy lead for the Kamloops Food Policy Council spoke to Canada’s National Observer about how the group is making that happen. 

Mickey Aylard used to wake up at 3 every morning and milk a hundred cows. Now, a robot does the job. Three years ago, the fourth-generation Saanich, B.C., dairy farmer installed an automatic milking system. It was a relief, she said, boosting her mental health and making life on the farm more sustainable.  

The delivery service’s additional fee has since been called “ridiculous” by Premier John Horgan, while Jobs Minister Ravi Kahlon said the solicitor general’s office will consider seeking legal action against the company.

More than half of Canadians trust social media and blogs over doctors and nutritionists, according to a recent study.

Like most salmon scientists, Andrea Reid spends months each year searching for the iconic fish in salty estuaries and along the silty riverbanks of B.C.’s glacial torrents.

The report, released by the Salmon Coast Field station, analyzed more than 150 salmon populations in the Broughton Archipelago and inlets on northeast Vancouver Island and the central coast.

He has worked in food system development for eight years and is now the provincial manager of Can You Dig It at the Public Health Association of BC.

Last February, Felix Böck picked up a shipping container sent express from Disneyland and stuffed with a precious load: Single-use chopsticks the company couldn’t use because of a package design error.

"Canadians deserve to feel confident that their seafood is safe, honestly labelled and legally caught,” says Sayara Thurston of Oceana Canada.

John Skinner just wants to mail a case of his vineyard’s wine to family in Ontario — but can’t without breaking the law. For Okanagan winemakers like Skinner, that domestic trade barrier has been a further hindrance to business already slowed by the pandemic.