GrainsWest Summer 2018

The Food Issue 2018 Grains West 38 INVENTIVE EATS FEATURE BY ALLISON FINNAMORE • PHOTOS COURTESY OF PROGRESSIVE FOODS Farmers and food entrepreneurs respond to changing consumer demographics ARRELL BRICKER SEES opportunity in farming and the food industry. The CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs says Canadians are living longer, eating healthier and welcoming immigrants like never before, bringing new residents hungry for a taste from their former homelands. The changing nature of the country’s consumer demographics presents open doors for farmers and agri-food entrepreneurs. “We’re not having enough kids to replenish our population. The young- er part of the population is shrinking and the older part of the population is growing,” Bricker said. “The mainstream is really older people and there’s a lot of them and they have a lot of money. They’re prepared to buy quality foods— nutrition is one of the reasons they’re living longer.” Meanwhile, immigration is exploding, Bricker said. With 330,000 immigrants a year, Canada has the fastest growing population in the G8, with 90 per cent settling in the Greater Toronto Area and Western Canada. “That’s what’s really firing the growth of Canada, is immigra- tion,” he said, pointing to the Philip- pines, India and China as the top three countries from which new Canadians immigrate. These trends combine to create a food demographic profile that agribusi- ness needs to pay attention to, Bricker emphasized. “When you start looking at food products people are going to be eating—and in the areas that are growing the most—what are we making for the Asian palate?” Sharing that taste of home is exactly how Edmonton’s Chef Bombay started. Noorudin Jiwani, president and CEO, said his mother, a dietician, started making samosas on a large scale in 2000, fulfilling her dream to share the Indian food the family eats every day with fellow Indian-Canadians and peo- ple outside the Indian community. The samosas, and additional Indian dishes the company subsequently developed, were so popular that five years later, Chef Bombay seriously required expan- sion. The problem, Jiwani recalled, was deciding whether there was enough market demand. D