SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
JANUARY 2018
2
SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • JANUARY 2018
If a picture is worth a thousand words, a tab label on a culturally-relevant and customer- friendly web page has got to be worth more, right? Head to fieldstoneorganics.ca and you’ll find front and centre – and layered over a flannelled and sun-kissed forearm with an outstretched hand freely grazing the top of a grain crop – a tab that reads Our Difference. Click on that tab and you’ll know straight away what motivates the Fieldstone Granary team. It’s their collective belief in the goodness of organics and whole grains. It’s their pride in healthy organic foods grown exclusively in Western Canada. It’s their partnerships with local farmers in British Columbia to grow the best crop on healthy soils for long term sustainability. It’s the knowledge that their market is no longer a niche market and that increasingly informed consumers want their food grown and handled without the use of chemicals, herbicides, pesticides or synthetic fertilizers. Fieldstone Granary benefits local communities not only in the Okanagan but throughout North America by providing delicious whole grains, legumes, and seeds for bulk, wholesale and retail consumers through their online store. In early December Spotlight on Business had the pleasure of speaking with Fieldstone Granary’s founder and owner Tony Van Den Tillaart and general manager Paula Siddons. Tony and Paula were more than eager to separate the wheat from the chaff as passionate representatives of British Columbia’s certified organic grain handling facilities.
By David MacDonald W hen Tony Van Den Tilaart retired fromdairy farming in 2007 he had no desire to quit farming. None. Tony’s a hands-on kind of guy. There’s no quit in him. “I’d always been interested in growing grains organically,” he explainedwith palpable excitement in his voice. “I’dbeen involved before my retirement with the local spelt co-op and from there myself and another local farmer decided to invest in the granary and start Fieldstone Organics.” Spelt is grain crop older than the Great Pyramid of Giza, which was constructed circa 2580 to 2560 BCE. Needless to say, it’s not a genetically engineered grain. But it sure is ancient. It’s also considered more nutritious than modern wheat. Willem Roell, the other local farmer, is widely considered instrumental in bringing the methods and infrastruc-
3
JANUARY 2018 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
“If we want to keep feeding from the land then we need to take good care of it.”
it really doesn’t take long before you become passionate about nutrition. As a mother of two, it soon became more than just a job. Fieldstone truly believes in the connection between food and health. Our mission is to promote a healthy, wholesome organic way of life with our local food products by inter-connecting farmers, community and con- sumers and in doing so, supporting long-term sustainabili- ty. That being said, eating well for health is a lifestyle and at the end of the day it all comes back to the farmers.” “We just wanted to farm and have a place where we could sell our organic crops locally.” As the general manager at Fieldstone, Paula is connected to the product at every stage. “From the organic growers through to our cleaning and production – right through to our customers and consumers – it’s a pretty unique job in that I know the product from seed to shelf.”
ture of organic farming to BC.
Despite their (ancient) green thumbs, there was a problem. “Neither Willem or I wanted to run the business,” Tony said. “ We just wanted to farm and have a place where we could sell our organic crops locally.”
That’s where Paula came into the picture.
Paula is one of the founding employees at Fieldstone Granary. She joined the team in 2009 shortly after emigrat- ing from England. “I was a fashion marketer before coming to Canada. I knew there was never going to be much in the way of work for a fashion marketer in the Okanagan, so I was pleased to land the job at Fieldstone’s,” Paula recalled. “The great part is when you’re working in the organic food industry
For Paula, the decision to eat organically really comes down to “what you are prepared to put in your body.”
“Unfortunately, modern day conventional farming prac- tices now involve an excessive use of toxic chemicals and these poisons remain there in every bite that we eat,” she explained. “By choosing organic there’s a reassurance that your food is safe to eat and reduces the risk of getting sick later down the road.”
Tony couldn’t help jumping in on Paula’s point. He’s hands- on, remember.
“We often get asked why we don’t offer any flours or oat flakes and the answer is quite simply that we will only ever offer organic whole grains in their most nutritional form,” he explained. “If you think of an individual kernel as if it were an apple, once you slice the apple is starts to turn brown, oxidise and nutritionally deteriorate, the exact same thing happens to a kernel of grain. We always encourage customers to process their grains fresh – fresh is always best, right? We have a range of German-made home flour mills and flakers that are becoming more and more popular and if you think about it it’s no different to freshly ground coffee beans.” In fact, a crop as foundational to civilization as wheat has undergone a 60-year engineered evolution that few consider with the scrutiny with which they drink their morning cup of joe. “Wheat has been hybridized to become what we commonly see today used in our fluffy white loaves of bread,” Paula said. “The gluten in modern wheats is strong and has lots of elasticity and unfortunately for many it has also become quite indigestible. Ancient grains offer a more palatable alternative with their water-soluble gluten. These grains have been grown since ancient times and remain unaltered. They’re healthy, digestible and offer flavours that you just don’t get with modern wheat.” Fieldstone Granary’s commitment to provide healthy, digestible and flavourful organic grains to the consumer represents nothing short of a Renaissance in what we eat. The Sprouting Table found at fieldstoneorganics.ca shows customers how to sprout their grain to get the most out of their healthy choice. If you take a 1/3 cup of Buckwheat and soak it for eight hours, for instance, it will sprout in three to five days giving you 1 ½ cups of mild tasting sprouts that can be used in a variety of recipes from soups to salads to breads or spreads. “When you take a single grain and sprout it you’re essentially bringing it to life, it becomes a live food,” Paula explained. “At this stage the grain offers the absolute maximum nutri- tional value. Sprouting also activates the seed’s enzymes, converting starch to sugar, making the grain much more digestible and flavourable.” There’s also the huge environmental benefit to organic farming, Tony pointed out. “If we want to keep feeding from the land then we need to take good care of it.” By and large organic farms have higher soil organic matter content and lower nutrient losses like nitrogen leaching, nitrous oxide emissions and ammonia emissions per unit of field, according to sciencedirect.com .
“Good organic farming practices very much rely on crop rotation,” Tony explained. “In the prairies you’ll see the farmers’ crop rotate within their 1000s of acres. Here in BC things are a little different. Most of our growers farm between 40 to 100 acres, making crop rotation something of a challenge. Our producer plan factors in crop rotation between many growers. One year they will grow wheat for us, the next year they may grow flax, then in the fall seed spelt. It really works to every- one’s benefit. There is no denying that organic farming has its fair share of challenges, whether its weed control, soil
nutrition or simply the weather, but Fieldstone has become a place where organic growers can come together, learn from each other, share new ideas – and old ideas, for that matter. In fact, we have a grower meeting this evening where everyone will get together and share stories and eat soup!” “Without our local organic growers,” Paula continued, “Fieldstone would not exist. Our relationship functions very similarly to a cooperative. In the spring we have a good idea of the products that we will need for next 12 months and put together a producer plan with suggested crops for each organic farm. There are no contracts or pressure for the farmer to grow what we suggest, it’s simply a sugges- tion that gives the farmer confidence that we will be looking to buy his crop at harvest time. We’re able to supply seed to our local growers at discounted rates and also provide any support they may need along the way. For those without storage we offer a guaranteed place to deliver your crop at harvest time, which is a huge bonus for the smaller farms.”
“For many of our customers these grains have been hard to come by in the past, so we are thrilled that our local growers are so good at producing them. We also sell locally-grown flax seed, buckwheat, corn and a variety of peas and lentils – these crops are always in high demand.”
Paula explained that some of Fieldstone Granary’s biggest customers are organic flour mills.
“These flour mills take organic grains by the truck load. We have many long-term relationships with artisan bakeries that mill their flour onsite and produce the most fabulous European style breads, cakes and cookies. Our other whole- sale customers are wheat grass growers, restaurants and retail stores. We’re also more than happy to supply direct to consumers in their homes. Our webstore is easy-to- use and we ship our products all over Canada. We also have a general store here at the granary and it’s great to have a chance to meet our customers because they are always so dedicated to buying local and organic. I’ve lost track of how many times we have been thanked for doing what we do and that’s pretty special,” she said. One of the granary’s biggest areas of growth over the last five years is the craft distillery market in BC and beyond. “It’s such a unique industry with some amazing people,” Paula explained.
When it comes to organic grain handling, Fieldstone Granary really is all things to all people.
They offer a wide variety of organic whole wheats and commonly used grains such as oats, barley and rye – but they’re best-known for their ancient grains. “We pride our- selves on offering some of the best quality organic Spelt, Emmer, Khorasan and Einkorn,” Tony explained.
“By choosing organic there’s a reassurance that your food is safe to eat and reduces the risk of getting sick later down the road.”
6
SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • JANUARY 2018
“We’ve had the pleasure of working with so many start- ups and we’ve watched their businesses just boom!”
Like anything hands-on, it’s all a labour of love for Tony and his team at Fieldstone Granary.
“Most of our daily challenges involve cleaning the grains to our food grade standard of 99.9 percent food grade purity,” he explained. “We have a great team in the mill that over the years have developed this craft and are able to use all of our equipment to achieve the quality that our customers need. This can involve sizers, gravity tables, air screens, de-stoner and then we have a very fancy optical colour sorter. Basically, if it doesn’t make the grade then it doesn’t make it into our warehouse. We’re a small team, but all of us are really dedicated to Fieldstone and we really believe in what we do. That really helps when you have problems to deal with.” “I guess in organic farming Mother Nature can be your best friend and your worst enemy. Even though Field- stone doesn’t personally farm, we are reliant on the crops from our farmers and therefore we’re hugely effected by the weather. 2017 was a tough year here in BC. With the flooding in the spring and drought in the summer last year we hope that 2018 is a little kinder,” Paula added.
7
JANUARY 2018 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
FIELDSTONE GRANARY
4851 Schubert Road Armstrong, BC V0E 1B4
250.546.4558 info@fieldstoneorganics.ca
www.fieldstoneorganics.ca
as spotlighted in the JANUARY 2018 issue of SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
www.spotlightonbusinessmagazine.com
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker