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Compiled by the Highway Journey Alberta staff
Final up to date on July 5, 2022
If you get able to dive into a luxurious, freshly-cooked meal, do you ever marvel the place your meals comes from?
Chances are high – if you happen to’re from Alberta – a lot of the meals in your plate was in all probability raised within the southern a part of the province. As a result of with over 4,470 farms, 11,000 companies, and over 4.2 million acres of land, southern Alberta is thought extensively as Canada’s Premier Meals Hall. Alongside rolling prairie hills are 1000’s of grazing animals, with fertile farmland surrounding in abundance. And now, beneath an initiative put collectively by Tourism Lethbridge (the largest metropolis close to the middle of this space), these producers and their wares can be found to expertise for your self!
Drive Your Personal Southern Alberta Meals Tour
See operations first-hand and pattern a number of the 65+ merchandise produced inside Canada’s Premier Meals Hall. With a freestyle method to constructing your personal itinerary, you’re certain to have a full abdomen and a thoughts stuffed with recollections.
Learn on to pattern a number of the producers you possibly can go to your self, or curate your personal itinerary by means of the Tourism Lethbridge web site.
Broxburn Greens and Cafe
What started as a humble u-pick operation in 1994, Broxburn has grown right into a thriving produce farm and nourishing café spot. Devoted to essentially the most pure strategies of rising peppers, tomatoes, kale, onions, eggplants, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and quite a lot of different greens with the least quantity of chemical intervention attainable, Broxburn Greens are straightforward to identify (and odor) as the standard and care that goes into each bit of produce is outstanding and recent.
On the farm, every thing is utilized to its full potential and so they recycle and reuse as a lot as attainable to scale back waste. For instance, water runoff from the greenhouse is used to water the strawberries within the subject; coconut husk (“coco”) that grows the hydroponics within the greenhouse is used within the subject as mulch for the strawberries and raspberries, and the clippings off peppers are fed to their chickens.
The Broxburn motto is ‘from plant to plate’ and that is greatest realized of their on-site café the place scrumptious home-cooked meals using the farm substances is served. They incorporate recent produce from the greenhouses, subject crops, and different native suppliers into their meals, creating an genuine farm-to-table expertise.
Informational greenhouse excursions can be found to the general public throughout Alberta Open Farm Days. On some other day, a go to to Broxburn is a family-friendly expertise with just a little one thing for everybody, and a must-stop in your southern Alberta meals tour. Decide some recent strawberries from the sphere, meander by means of the adjoining flower greenhouse, decide up some recent veggies from the shop and end with a chew on the cafe!
Prairie Hill Farms
The incomparable haskap berry is a lesser-known berry that’s stuffed to the brim with antioxidants. The title comes from a Japanese phrase that means “berry of lengthy life and good imaginative and prescient”. With skinny pores and skin, it is named a berry of longevity and is in style to make use of in baking.
Haskap berries come from varieties native to northern boreal forests in Asia, Europe, and North America. They just like the local weather of southern Alberta and the bushes develop by the acre on small farms. The Vandenberg household, who’re desirous to share the well being advantages of the fruit, created Prairie Hill Farms to not solely develop haskap berries, but in addition to course of them into numerous objects. Haskap jam, BBQ sauce, berry juice, and extra are all accessible at their storefront.
Their 40 acres of haskap fields present a plethora of merchandise of their retail retailer, nevertheless, additionally they carry recent baked items, in addition to native produce, honey, and eggs from close by farms.
Crystal Springs Cheese
In the event you’re like us and haven’t met a cheese but that you simply don’t like, then a go to to Crystal Springs Cheese is an actual deal with! They’re family-owned and operated, worldwide award-winning cheese makers with humble beginnings proper in southern Alberta.
Not solely do they increase their very own dairy cows, however additionally they pump the milk over to the adjoining cheese manufacturing facility to provide types of cheese like feta, gouda, and cheddar, in addition to yogurts. All is on the market within the retail cheese retailer that additionally sells domestically sourced wine and beer, ice cream cones, and a collection of native and imported dry items (together with many hard-to-find treats from the Netherlands!).
Broek Pork Acres
Broek Pork Acres focuses on elevating pork the old school approach. A real mother and pop endeavor, this native household farm focuses on high quality fairly than amount, particularly elevating Heritage Breed Berkshire Pork (which is named the “Kobe beef” of the pork world).
Not solely are the pigs tended with care, however they’re every damaged down by hand of their farm processing facility – leading to an excellent piece of pork stuffed with juiciness, tenderness, and wealthy marbling. The Broek Pork farm represents the true pasture-to-plate course of, from rising and elevating the animals to their slaughtering, processing, and advertising and marketing on to prospects.
In addition they have a retail house to go to and buy their merchandise onsite. Most certainly it is going to be a member of the household that greets you to let you know all about their pork that has no fillers, no added water, and no GMO substances. Pattern a few of their merchandise and convey some dwelling to essentially style the true distinction of household farm pork.
Little Gem Vineyard
It could be stunning to listen to that southern Alberta has scrumptious fruit wine, however it does certainly! Haskap berries make up the principle ingredient within the wines produced by Little Gem Vineyard. Showcasing two reds (one aged in oak), a rosé, a crisp cider, and a dessert wine, the haskap flavour comes by means of sturdy in all 5. Put collectively in a humble facility, when the batches are prepared, every bottle is positioned by hand to be corked, labels are adhered by hand, and packaged rigorously.
Collectively, the group that kinds Little Gem have been farming in Nobleford, Alberta, for 3 generations, working onerous to construct what they’ve. With a give attention to letting the pure notes of the haskap berry shine brightly by means of, they use low intervention strategies from the very starting as a substitute of utilizing extreme sulfites or different components, additionally they keep away from overprocessing their wine. The consequence? A fruity wine that also retains the haskap berry sweetness blended with totally different ranges of fermentation and carbonation relying on the wine of selection.
Little Gem doesn’t promote their wines onsite, however you possibly can discover their merchandise at quite a lot of locations within the Lethbridge space.
Carry a full automobile and an empty abdomen!
A southern Alberta meals tour that highlights a number of the many producers within the area is an thrilling endeavor to carry extra consciousness to how essential this area of Canada is. Meals manufacturing in Canada’s Premier Meals Hall is flourishing and visiting a number of the hardworking women and men who assist feed the world is a good way to essentially immerse your self in a real farm-to-table expertise.
And while you’re within the space, it’s also possible to attempt these substances at many Lethbridge eating places, together with Italian Desk and Mocha Cabana. In the event you’re in Image Butte, it’s also possible to pattern space meals at Cattleman’s Chophouse.
This southern Alberta meals tour put up was produced by us, delivered to you by Tourism Lethbridge.
