Education is an important part of building a strong and vibrant food system.
We host a number of workshops focused on food tourism for the general tourism, agriculture, and hospitality industries throughout the year.
We’ve delivered dynamic, engaging, customized workshops and webinars across Canada. Some of our most popular themes include:
Food Tourism 101
How to Tell Your Local Food Story
The Power of Partnerships (for small small-business)
How to meet a Food Tourist’s Expectations for:
Restaurants
Farmers Markets
Farm Gate Operations
An Intro to Agritourism
Creating Multisensory Experiences for the Food Connected Consumer
Working with Food Media and Influencers
Incorporating Taste of Place for Events
Keeping Things Zero-Waste
“Excellent examples, practical solutions,
exciting to hear about other communities and events. Love the CTA’s style of engaging with attendees.”
— Attendee Feedback, Taste of Place and Zero-Waste, Festivals and Events Ontario Workshop—
Want us to deliver a workshop in your region?
Workshop creation and implementation is one of many tools our team uses to build capacity and execute community engagement initiatives. Learn more here.
For DMOs and Sector groups in Ontario looking to provide resources for their stakeholders, we urge you to consider membership with the Culinary Tourism Alliance. Members can access some existing digital content free of charge. Contact us for details.
If you’re a foodservice professional or run a small business, keep an eye out for our Feast On Stock Event Series. Details on these hands-on, intimate workshops geared towards providing new skills and tools for the industry are below.
“When we wanted to offer a workshop for farm market vendors we approached the Culinary Tourism Alliance for support. Agatha was able to arrange a training session with an approach that truly understood the audience. Their extensive experience working with culinary and agricultural producers provided them with the perspective to create a training session that was engaging, educational, encouraged dialogue and produced results.”
— Meredith Maywood, County of Oxford at “Best Practices for Farmers’ Market Vendors” —
Canada's tourism sector has been severely impacted by the COVID-19 crisis and are focused on weathering the storm. The Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC) are here to help.
They know that Canada has much to offer visitors in all seasons — not just the summer months — and in regions across Canada beyond our gateway cities. They also know that Canada holds all the ingredients to be a global culinary destination, but is not currently recognized as a culinary tourism leader.
When Canada is ready to welcome visitors from across our country and from around the world, they want us to be ready with exceptional year-round experiences.
Through their new series of workshops aimed at supporting growth and innovation for local tourism operators across the country, they aim to help you hit the ground running once we are ready to welcome visitors back.
Feast On®
event series
Feast On events included the STOCK Series and Feast On the Farm, as well as educational, hands-on workshops at key events for the foodservice industry.
They are designed for people who want to learn how to successfully incorporate Ontario grown and raised ingredients into their menus while also learning sustainable practices.
So far, we’ve tackled topics such as: whole-animal butchery, seafood farming, regenerative farming and the importance of supporting small to medium sized farmers.
Held in partnership with educational institutions who are CTA members, the workshops feature hands-on components, discussions with industry expert, a food & beverage program; as well as a visit to an off-site facility to experience first hand how the ingredients being celebrated are grown and/or made.
Feast On® the Farm: Industry Days
Explore topics like vertical farming, aquaculture, racism and staff retention at immersive talks in the orchard, hands-on demos and more. There'll be plenty of time to reconnect with industry friends on the farm.
FISHSTOCK 2018
Held in partnership with Ocean Wise and the University of Guelph, attendees learned what it means to source sustainable Ontario lake fish and incorporate them into their menus.
Participants joined a hands-on fish butchery workshop focused on using wild Lake Erie Pickerel and farmed Arctic Char from gill to tail.
To finish off the experience, chefs had the opportunity to visit the Alma Aquaculture Research Station. The discussion was led by scientists pushing us to question our current notions on what we consider to be sustainable.
PIGSTOCK 2019
Held in partnership with Ontario Pork and Loyalist College, PIGstock was an intimate one-day workshop for those looking to learn how to source whole animals.
The day focused on Ontario pork and offered attendees a hands-on butchery demo, discussion on the merits of both heritage and commercial breeds, and a workshop on “nose to tail”. The group discussed issues in purchasing power, access, and sourcing in Ontario.
The workshop was brought to a close with a field trip to a Canadian, modern dry aging meat plant that employs Italian artisanal techniques where attendees made their own sausages using the meat from the butchery demo.
WINESTOCK 2017
Held in partnership with VQA Wines of Ontario and George Brown College, WINEstock gave chefs and front of house staff the opportunity to compare and contrasts wines unique to Ontario. Participants explored keystone varietals like Riesling, Pinot Noir and cold-climate Chardonnay.
CHEESESTOCK 2016
Held in partnership with Oxford County, the dairy capital of Canada, CHEESEstock brought together over 30 chefs and purchasers for a one-day field trip in dairy country. Participants visited 3 micro-dairies in the region to taste their offerings and learn about production practices unique to each cheesemaker.
“Feast On hosts some pretty fun events that have helped me connect with like-minded people;
whom, like me, are all a bit to busy in the kitchen to normally spend any time with one another.”
Chef Nick Benninger
Taco Farm, Waterloo
Certified since 2015