Food Less Traveled joins with Open Farms InFrontenac

Jeff Green | Aug 22, 2018

Only a store like Food Less Traveled/Local Family Farms, the store that Kim Perry runs in Verona, would fit in as one of the stops on a tour of farms in South Frontenac. The store is not only an outlet for many growers in Frontenac and the surrounding region, it is also tightly connected to the Perry-Anjou Farm in the Harrowsmith-Yarker area. The Perry family farm supplies the store with most of its grass fed beef, pork, chickens and turkeys, and Kim and Dave Perry’s kids work in the store and on the farm interchangeably.

The ten year old store was one of the host sites at the Canada 150 South Frontenac Tour last year, and at the Open Farms InFrontenac event, set for September 9, it will host not only Perry-Anjou farms but other local farms that are not open at their own locations. One of them will be Orbit Farms, run by Jeff and Sue Peters on Moreland-Dixon near Inverary. The beef Farmers of Frontenac will also have a booth, as will Wilton Creek Dairy, among others. The Perry’s will be bringing some livestock over to the store from their farm, and there will be activities on the grounds outside the store as well.

“It’s a great opportunity for us to work with some of the farms whose products we sell, or who we share with in other ways,” said Kim Perry from the store on Tuesday, as she was taking a break from baking pies.

In addition to selling an array of food and other products from local producers, Perry also makes pies, butter tarts, savoury baking and soups, using locally sourced produce, for sale in the store and at special events. This week she was preparing for the annual Night Market at the Memorial Centre, which brings together music, food, beer/wine/cider, local farmers and artisans, and this year, fresh fruit pies and butter tarts from Verona as well.

Local Family Farms has become a fixture in Verona after taking over the location that used to house Pam’s Country Bulk Store many years ago. Ever since it opened, it has provided a more convenient way for consumers to access locally produced meat than purchasing it directly from the farm. It has grown as the burgeoning local food movement InFrontenac has developed and new farmers have taken up the challenge to start producing and selling a wide variety of agricultural products.

At the InFrontenac farm tour there are some farms that have been developing their own unique agricultural practices over a generation or two on the same patch of land. Still others are bringing knowledge from other regions to new farms, and others have jumped into farming as a vocation, armed with only some training, a lot of energy, and a love for the challenge of farming in the 21st Century, with its mix of technology and reverence for the way things grow.

The tour takes place on September 9 from 10am-4pm. See the ad below and look to the Frontenac News for farm profiles in the lead up to the 9th.