Local Food Week: Celebrating Food Grown Here in Ontario
For this year’s Local Food Week, OCO took part in celebrating our province’s food that is grown, produced, and processed right here in Ontario. Every day between June 5 and 11, we shared exciting facts on our amazing organic sector on social media.
Check them out below, and don’t forget that other important facts can be found in OCO’s Data Portal! OCO Members can access data, research and reports on the organic sector by logging into OCO’s Data Portal.
June 5-11 is Local Food Week in Ontario, a celebration of the fresh, healthy food that’s grown, produced, and processed right here in Ontario.
Field crops like corn and soybeans make up a whopping 56% of Ontario’s organic acreage.
As of 2021, 19% of Ontario’s haskap berry acreage was organic. Haskap berries are cold-loving honeysuckles that grow in the northern hemisphere and have a sweet blueberry-like aroma. They can be eaten raw or used in baking, jams, and juices.
As of 2018, Ontario’s most produced organic fruits by acreage were wine grapes and apples. According to a 2019 report by Manitoba Agriculture (MA) and the Canada Organic Trade Association (COTA), Canada grew approximately 598 hectares of organic grapes in 2017, or about five per cent of Canada’s total grape crop.
Ontario has the most organic livestock producers out of all the provinces. Of Canada’s 840 organic livestock producers, 35% of them are in Ontario.
As of COTA’s 2021 Organic Market Report, Ontario remains the largest consumer of organic snacks of all the provinces, consuming more volume than Quebec and BC combined. Snacks across Canada saw a 19% growth in sales, with $44M of total organic sales snacks, the most popular of which was chocolate, as well as fruit nuts and seeds. Both of these snacks saw a 29% growth.
Roughly 26% percent of organic farms in Ontario are producing field crops as their predominant type of production, including corn, soybeans, and wheat.
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