The MRC Pontiac’s AgriSaveur kitchen won’t be open for public use until later this summer, but the veil was briefly lifted last Tuesday for a public info session and tour of the facility.
The event, hosted by MRC staff, was an opportunity for producers to learn about how the kitchen works, what equipment is available there and what certifications producers need to obtain to use the facility.
The AgriSaveur kitchen is one of three prongs in the MRC’s project to support the region’s agriculture industry through an abattoir, retail store and transformation kitchen.
In April the MRC announced it would be renting a space at 107 West Street in Shawville where it would install the kitchen, and has spent the last few months filling the space with equipment and preparing it for use.
“What’s really interesting is that we have four pieces of equipment here that you won’t find in your own kitchen,” said Maryse Vallières-Murray, the MRC’s agri-food project manager. She highlighted the facility’s smoker, freeze dryer, fast-cooling machine and smart oven as unique equipment available at the kitchen.
She said the various kinds of equipment as well as other details to do with the kitchen were determined in part by consulting with local producers who expressed interest in the project.
“We really want to be a more flexible space, so people can do bigger stuff but can also do a smaller scale,” she said.
The tour also featured a presentation from food transformation expert Martin Lamoureux, who was there to demystify the process for local producers wanting to use the facility.
“He was explaining about all the permits you need, so if you want to sell to grocery stores, if you want to sell to a farmer’s market, all the rules that apply to this kitchen,” Vallières-Murray said, noting producers wishing to sell directly to consumers will need a different permit than those wanting to sell in stores.
Bristol Market organizer Emily Reid, who has been trying to attract a wider variety of local vendors to her weekly market for a few years, said she hopes this kitchen will remove barriers for local producers such as cost, convenience and information about what certifications are needed.
“The simpler, faster and cheaper it is, the better,” she said. “The more likely the vendors will be willing to go through all those certifications and permits.”
UPA Pontiac president Claude Vallière said he is encouraged by the potential of the project and the wide variety of equipment in the kitchen.
“I was impressed by the equipment that was there. With the fridges and freezers, it’s really important for the quality of the food that will be made,” he said in French.
He said he is hopeful the project can be a reliable staple for local producers wishing to transform their products.
“The goal is to create a demand, to offer a service. So if the service is there, hopefully it will create demand and it will be used [ . . . ] and people can plan to use the service. Before, we had nothing, and it’s certain that doing value-added transformations of our products is worth more [for producers],” he said.
Vallières-Murray said this is precisely part of the idea behind the facility – to fill a local need for value-added products made with producers’ raw ingredients so they don’t have to travel outside the Pontiac.
“We have a lot of producers, but we have really no places to transform [their products],” she said. “You send your raw product somewhere else to be transformed and sold somewhere else [ . . . ] so really what we want to work on is [keeping] our added value in the Pontiac.”
She said work with the abattoir part of the project is progressing slowly but steadily. Although there is no set opening date, she said the producers running the co-op are working toward having a grand opening.
“We’re aiming toward [the] opening pretty soon,” she said. “We have the permits but we still need to run tests with the equipment, make sure everything is working, get the staff working together.”
Vallières-Murray said they are hoping to officially open the kitchen sometime in July.
