Stratford dairy wins top provincial innovation award
Thursday, October 10, 2013
by JOE CALLAHAN
Innovation in the agri-food sector won the day at Queen’s Park on Monday.
Innovations in finance, entrepreneurship, problem-solving computer technology and sustainable business practices were honoured as farmers and producers shared in the $200,000 presented by Ontario Premier and Agriculture Minister Kathleen Wynne at the annual Premier’s Award for Agri-Food Innovation Excellence ceremonies at Queens Park.
The top dollar award of $75,000 went to Monforte Dairy in Stratford in recognition of its creative solution to raising capital. Owner of the dairy, Ruth Klahsen, was faced with the challenge of financing new facilities when their five-year lease was ending. They turned to their community and customers for support and 1,000 of them invested $500.00 each, which provided the capital for their new environmentally sustainable cheese-making facilities.
“We just put the ‘ask’ out and the response was huge,” says Klahsen. “It proves that there’s room in the market for artisanal (cheese) production. I don’t think we’ve even hit the tip of the iceberg.”
Klahsen says that she is going to use the money from the award to create a cheese-making school.
The $50,000 Minister’s Award for Agr-Food Innovation Excellence was presented to Marisa and Len Crispino of the Foreign Affair Winery in Vineland. The Crispinos decided to follow their dream of making an Amarone wine (a red wine found in northern Italy) after Len was diagnosed with cancer. They found 40 acres and started from scratch with, as Len says, “no parameters in place.” At first they lost a lot of their grapes due to mould, and that motivated them to develop what Len calls a “continuum of care” for their grapes.
Len explains that caring for the grapes starts most critically in the vineyard itself and that they had to reduce their yield from four to four and a half tons per acre to two tons per acre. “The grapes have to be hand-harvested not machine harvested . . . the instructions to the harvesters is ‘Pretend that these are eggs, that’s how gently you need to deal with them,'” says Len.
To overcome the mould problem with the “appassimento” (outdoor) drying technique, the Crispinos changed the way air flowed through the grapes. Using trays imported from the Netherlands, they ensured that the grapes were placed on the trays in one layer only so that bunches of grapes were not touching each other. This avoided trapping moisture that created the mould. They also avoided double and triple handling of the grapes, handling them only once right in the vineyard.
Three Leaders in Innovation award winners were also named on Monday and were given $25,000 each: Geissberger Farmhouse Cider, Thompson’s Maple Products and the Y U Ranch.
Brothers Garry and Gordon Geissberger of Hampton needed to upgrade their apple cider mill that had been in use for the last 43 years and after determining that there was a big need for it, they were rewarded for putting a mobile cider mill from Europe on the road – the only one in Ontario.
“With the mobile mill we’ve been on the road from Owen Sound to Kingston,’ says Garry. “We can process 400 to 500 litres per hour.”
The Geissbergers use five-litre “bag-in-a-box” packaging.
“In a number of places, people are taking (the packaged bag-in-a-box cider) out of the bins (in the field) and taking them into the store and paying for them before they even reach the store,” says Garry.
Joyce and Doug Thompson of Thompson Maple Products in Hilton Beach near Sault Ste. Marie had a problem finding leaks in their roughly 200 kms of sap lines. They won their Leadership in Innovation award when, with the help of a programmer, they developed technology that allowed them to monitor their sap lines from a computer.
“It’s a real honour (to win),” says Doug. “From what I hear, no one from northern Ontario has ever won it.”
After testing the system for a year, the Thompsons now have a process that uses a GPS map indicating where all the sensors are in their lines. The sensors are colour coded indicating the degree of vacuum in the line; green for high vacuum, yellow for medium and red for low. It used to take five people to check where the leaks are; now it takes two.
The Thompsons have developed a company, Tap Track Technologies Inc., to market their sap line monitoring system and they say that the cost of investing in the system can be recouped in one year.
Bryan and Cathy Gilvesy in Tillsonberg were recognized as Leaders in Innovation by developing their Farmers’ Market Express, a hybrid, gas/electric refrigerated mini-van that delivers their grass-fed beef to customers.
Originally tobacco producers, Bryan explains that in 1993 they had to make a plan for “life after tobacco.” They decided to find a niche and develop their own brand by trying to “take a fresh look.”
The Gilvesys supply eight restaurants and Bryan explains that they wanted “to be the people walking in the door with (their) product, keeping a constant connection with the chefs.”
They also wanted to get their children Paula, 17 years old, and Joe, 16 years old, involved with the business. Because the van is small enough that anyone with a G license can drive it, the children were anxious to help. “They do three to four (farmers’) markets,” says Bryan. “They have developed all of their display materials and all of the promotional stuff. They go. We have never shown up to help them, we just made them find their way.”
Paula and Joe have also developed their own brand of beef jerky, which they are taking to market.
The Premier’s Awards for Agri-Food Innovation Excellence are part of a larger provincial initiative, the Local Food Fund. In its most recent budget, the province committed $30 million, providing up to $10 million per year for projects and strategic initiatives across Ontario that increase awareness of, access to and demand for local food.
The Local Food Fund opened in mid-September and it is currently accepting applications. BF