The “Marchés d’Ici” of Val-David joins the Slow Food Earth Market Network

The second Earth Market in Canada welcomes visitors from Saturday, May 28

The network of Earth Markets—farmers’ markets that follow Slow Food principles—continues to expand, with the “Marchés d’Ici” in Val-David, Québec, bringing the total number of markets in Canada to two, and 84 worldwide.

The location

Val-David is a small town of less than 6000 inhabitants in the Laurentian Mountains, about 80 km north of Montreal, in the heart of the regional park of Val-David-Val-Morin. This conservation park makes its natural spaces available for daily recreational and educational purposes, and is well known in Canada for its food and cultural scene.

The Market

The Val-David market, which becomes a Slow Food Earth Market in May 2022, was founded in 2013. Over the years it has become a local focal point of reference for grocery shopping, but also for the community more generally. Cooking workshops are organized for children and adults during the summer, and the market has taken on a role of providing educational tools for customers to help them better understand the factors that affect food production on local, small-scale farms: time, soil, work. There are 37 such producers at the Val-David Earth Market, many of them are certified organic.

There’s freshly-prepared food ready to eat at the market too, thanks to the multicultural gastronomic offering of local exhibitors. Over the last several years the recycling of waste, the rational use of production facilities and resource-sharing have been at the center of activities for exhibitors. Plastic bags were banned from the market three years ago, and customers are encouraged to bring their own reusable containers.

Developed in collaboration with Slow Food Montréal, the Earth Market of Val-David comes in the wake of the Bouctouche Earth Market and is part of the network of Marchés d’Ici, a pioneering project born in the year 2000 that aims to conserve and improve Quebec’s agri-food heritage and promote direct sales from farmers to customers.. 

“With the Marché de la Terre de Val-David we wanted to bring about a change in the buying habits of local people, as well as tourists, and create a direct link with producers,” explains Marc Desrosiers, Co-President of Slow Food Montréal. “It’s important to encourage local trade and the local economy, and have customers discover fresh local products. For this reason, we choose to work with producers who are closely aligned with the  principles of the Slow Food philosophy”. 

There are 37 exhibitors at the market, most of them organic, and they cover the whole range of products needed for a complete grocery shop: sourdough bread, fruit and vegetables, cheese, honey, oil, fresh meat, sweets and cakes. The exhibitors, whose number may increase in future, are in particular:

Ferme aux petits oignons| auxpetitsoignons.bio

Domaine du Petit St-Joseph | www.domainedupetitstjoseph.ca

Boulangerie Karma Poolish | www.karmapoolish.com

Bois st-Cyr | rene-st-cyr.com

Les Jardins Vertige | www.facebook.com/lesjardinsvertige

Les Serres Héritage du Jardin | www.facebook.com/heritagedujardin

La Ferme Complètement Légume | www.completementlegume.com

La Récolte de la Rouge | www.larecoltedelarouge.com

Ferme Nature Complice

Gulo Gulo Charcuterie | charcuteriesgulogulo.com

Fines herbes Patrick Lauzon | chacunsonarome.com

Folie Douce | www.jusderhubarbe.ca

Fromagiers de la Table Ronde | www.fromagiersdelatableronde.com

Une Touche D’Ail | unetouchedail.ca

Troupeau Bénit

Plume des champs

Orts Pizza | ortspizza.com

Miel de la Garde | mieldelagarde.com

Miel Morand | www.mielmorand.com

Les Fumistes | lesfumistesbbq.com

Piperade | www.facebook.com/PiperadeDidierLopez

Création Madeleine | creationmadeleine.ca

David et Philip Inc. | boeuflocal.ca

L’Or de l’Italie | lordelitalie.ca

La Fine Fleur de la Tapani | latapani.com

Érablière & Vergers Varin | varin.ca

Humus à Mamai 

Lyo Alimentation | www.lyo-alimentation.ca

Violon et champignon | violonetchampignon.com

Pain voyons donc | painvoyonsdonc.ca

Ferme Hill Head Chili | www.fermehillheadchili.ca

 

Practical information

Time: On Saturday, May 28 the Marché d’Ici of Val-David will open to the public, in Rue de l’Académie, from 9.00 a.m. to 1.00 p.m. This will be the first day as a Slow Food Earth Market.

 

Pictures available here https://imagelibrary.slowfood.it/category/18014 

Read more: https://www.fondazioneslowfood.com/en/slow-food-markets/marches-dici-earth-market-in-val-david/ 

 

For more info, contact the Earth Market coordinators:

Diane Seguin

Email: [email protected] – Tel: +1 (819) 321-5681