Variety of district products off to Royal Winter Fair

Toronto will be getting a big taste of Rainy River District for 10 days next month as local agri-businesses gear up to send their products down east for the 87th-annual Royal Agricultural Winter Fair.
“We’re taking the region to the Royal Winter Fair,” said Jeanette Cawston, rural ag co-ordinator for the Rainy River Future Development Corp., who has been busily co-ordinating with local producers and will be bringing at least 17 products to promote and sell at Northern Ontario’s pavilion.

Running Nov. 6-15 at Exhibition Place in Toronto, the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair is the largest of its kind in the world and sees hundreds of thousands of visitors pass through its doors.
“I think, as an economic community development organization, [the RRFDC] recognizes that producers can’t afford to go [there] and have a whole booth by themselves, but they would all love to have their product showcased and sold at the Royal Winter Fair,” Cawston explained.
“So that’s what we’re aiming at—we’ll take it and sell them for it.
“We’re really excited because RRFDC decided to move forward with regionalization in farming,” added Cawston, explaining that alongside producers from Rainy River District, she has been working with producers from Thunder Bay, Dryden, Atikokan, and Kenora to bring together items from across the region.
Products from Rainy River District include Seven Bends Honey, Purple Llama products, wild rice from Dick Trivers Enterprise, cranberry beef bag summer sausage from Cornell Farms, Breezy Bags by Mike Leatherdale, and cedar furniture from Kish-Gon-Dug Canada.
“We’ve got all kinds of really wonderful products going there, so I think [producers] are starting to get excited about it,” Cawston enthused.
Being able to bring local products to the Royal has been “great,” said Deb Cornell of the Rainy River Elk Company, who will returning to Toronto for the ninth time to set up shop under the Northern Ontario pavilion, which is funded by FedNor.
“The idea was to give northern agri-food producers just the venue to show their stuff,” Cornell added, referring to the pavilion that she has seen grow from 15 vendors to roughly 40.
There are “just all kinds of northern products,” she noted.
“Probably the thing that’s been most important to me is networking with other northern agri-food producers,” she continued. “I would have had very little opportunity to get to know the people in the northeast, and now I do business with a few of them.
“So that’s probably been the most valuable.”
One fun part of the Royal for Cornell also has been the chance to meet—and even sell products to—celebrities over the years, such as champion curler and CBC weather personality Colleen Jones.
The other highlight is the whole activity of the place, Cornell said—from horse shows and calf shows to butter sculptures.
“There’s just very many very cool things going on,” she stressed, noting that with some reorganization over the last three years, there’s also been a lot of focus on food, where food comes from, and food sustainability.
“And that’s all really wonderful.
“I think now that Jeannette’s going, that’s a great opportunity to get your product in front of people,” reasoned Cornell, though noting that heading down for the Royal every year is a big commitment—one that works for her and her husband, Bill, because his family lives just outside of Toronto.
“With [Cawston] being there, it offers [producers] an opportunity to be able to go down, take a couple or three days to be there, and see what goes on and yet she kind of runs the show and you don’t have to commit 12 days to it,” she added.
“If you have a food product, especially agricultural product, this is a really nice way to introduce to people, I think, and get your name out there, around the province.”
“[The Royal] is probably the biggest show that connects agriculture and the public—the consuming public,” agreed Rick Neilson of Seven Bends Honey and current president of the Rainy River Federation of Agriculture.
“I think it’s good for the profile of the Rainy River District,” he explained. “For [the public] to see our products and to know where we are and to know that Northern Ontario, in general, produces food.”
Neilson admitted Northwestern Ontario doesn’t have a very good profile when it comes to agriculture even though the Rainy River valley is fairly productive.
“Maybe it’s important, too, because if you can make it there, if people are buying your products there, people at home are going to say, ‘Well, they like it there, maybe we’ve got something here,’” he said.
“So it does relate back to our local food and what we’re trying to do with local food, as well,” Neilson stressed.
“Business is business and sales are sales,” Cawston remarked. “So if you can increase their sales potential by taking them to another area of the province, then it opens up more business viability for them.
“So they have a market in Northwestern Ontario, so let’s take that market and maybe extend it to southern, eastern Ontario, so that’s what it is—it’s opening up new markets for them,” she explained.
Cawston also pointed to last week’s meeting held to update the RRFA’s strategic plan.
“Their vision is a diverse, vibrant, and sustainable agriculture sector that is contributing as an important economic driver in the district over the long-term,” she noted.
Besides last year’s experience at the Royal being “amazing,” Cawston said it was a learning experience, too.
“I think that what we learned there was ways that the product moves best at the Royal Winter Fair,” she said.
“We’re hoping, actually, if [the rural agricultural initiative] gets its funding for three more years, to take and ask the Royal Winter Fair if we can have 45 feet of booth space so that we can really represent Northwestern Ontario in the northern pavilion,” she explained.
“And, of course, the northern pavilion and the FedNor staff are just amazing, and so helpful for anyone going up to the Royal Winter Fair,” Cawston added, noting there is no charge for them to be in the pavilion thanks to funding.
Along with items from the west end of the district, Cawston will be selling Nature Power Chews, V’s Bees Skin Handmade products, Red Cedar furniture from Turtle Wood Enterprises, and classical guitar straps from G Rig—all Atikokan-based businesses.
Producers brought on board from the Dryden, Oxdrift, and Kenora areas include the Home-style Candle Co., Egli Sheep Farm products, Lake of the Woods Sunrise Soap Company, and BusterBBQ Sauce.
And representing the Thunder Bay region will be the Chocolate Cow, Brule Creek Farms, and Northern Unique.