How the Culinary Tourism Alliance is Working Towards Reconciliation Internally and Externally
Today is Indigenous Peoples Day - a day to celebrate Indigenous cultures across Turtle Island; and for settlers, to work on steps of education and reconciliation.
Holding Ourselves Accountable
Here at the Culinary Tourism Alliance, we believe accountability is a big part of keeping our reconciliation in forward motion. As such, here is a look back at what we’ve accomplished this year and where we’d like to go in the future.
Support + Storytelling for Indigenous-Owned Businesses in Ontario
One of the ways we’ve been able to help tell Ontario’s food story through an Indigenous lens this year is through the Great Taste of Ontario program, a campaign that launched in 2020 and is continuing through to the end of 2023.
We worked closely with Indigenous Tourism Ontario to craft a passport featuring almost 20 different Indigenous-owned culinary businesses across the province.
This passport encourages folks to hit the road, visit, and support each of these businesses and encompasses spots like the Manitoulin Brewing Company, Mādahòkì Farms and Raven Rising Chocolates among many others.
People download their passports and check into stops along the way. When they’ve checked into three, they’ll receive a $25 Feast On® voucher straight to their phone.
A number of Globe & Mail features have been published as part of this campaign, including this one featuring Chef Tammy Maki from Raven Rising and this profile on Mark Mosolais-Nahwegahbow of Birch Bark Coffee.
We can’t wait to continue telling more of these stories this year!
Late last year and early this year, content trips to Sudbury and Thunder Bay have given us the opportunity to highlight Indigenous stories like that of the Anishinaabe encampment at Fort William Historical Park, Twiggs Coffee, In Common Social and Raven Rising Chocolates.
FEAST Workshops: Indigenous Food Tourism Workshops
This year, we were also lucky enough to work with Indigenous Tourism Ontario to host three workshops with Indigenous chefs and our own staff.
The topics included Growing Indigenous Food Tourism with Chef Jenni Lessard, Delivering Community-Based Experiences with Aicha Smith-Belghaba (owner of the newly Feast On®-certified Esha’s Eats) and Providing Transformational Experiences with Chef Zach Keeshig of Naagan.
Participants were given the chance to learn from and interact with these chefs as well as members of our professional services team.
Our DEI Committee Established a Reconciliation Action Plan Committee
Most recently, our DEI Committee, which is composed of staff members, sector organizations and destination partners, has established a Reconciliation Action Plan Sub-committee.
This newly established committee is working on creating a meaningful plan with community engagement that we hope to tell you more about soon! Please hold us accountable.
Making the Taste of Place Summit Truly Representative
Finally, we are proud to be hosting the Taste of Place Summit next week in Toronto! When we first started planning this global summit, we wanted to ensure that we provided a platform for underrepresented voices in the culinary industry, showcasing the true representation of Canada’s diversity.
As such, we’re pleased to announce that our speaker lineup includes a wide array of folks from across the globe and we’re happy to be highlighting Canadian Indigenous voices on two of our panels.
The first will be a chat with Kevin Eshkawakogan, CEO of Indigenous Tourism Ontario and Chef Paul Owl of Tree Teas Brewing Co. about a provincial approach to Indigenous culinary tourism.
Next, we’ll take this talk national as Chef Jenni Lessard moderates a panel with Chef Paul Natrall (Mr. Bannock), Chef Jenna White (Nut-Free Dessertery Inc.) and Chef Tammy Maki (Raven Rising).
Of course, we also wanted to highlight the foodways of Indigenous chefs! As such, Chef Aicha of Esha’s Eats will be cooking up something wonderful at our Feast On® lunch.
Going Forward
If you haven’t heard yet, we’ve officially gone national! This year, we look forward to connecting with Indigenous chefs and culinary experience operators across the country to learn more about the food stories of Turtle Island’s first inhabitants.
We hope to get out there and experience these tastes of place ourselves as well and use our platform to help tell their stories.
From a training perspective, we continue to offer our staff DEI training and the opportunity to sit on our committee.
What concrete steps toward reconciliation will you take this year?