The Rural Voice, 2001-08, Page 37too STEEL s4
• Beams • Pipe • Angle Iron • Channel
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1399 2nd Ave. East
Phone (519) 371-8111
Fax(519) 371-6011
Barrie
771 Bayview
Phone (705) 728-0660
Fax (705) 728-6562
1-800-567-7412
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FARM DRAINAGE LTD.
(ESTABLISHED 1968)
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MARQUARDT
FARM DRAINAGE LTD.
(ESTABLISHED 1968)
R.R. #3, Palmerston, Ontario
1-888-534-0393
OFFICE 343-3233 HOME 338-2373
STEVE CRONSBERRY (Owner)
34 THE RURAL VOICE
month.
"When you've got a debt looming
over your shoulder you'd like things
to happen quickly but nothing
happens quickly," Reid says.
Similarly. working out details of
the marketing agreement with Pine
River also took longer than anxious
co-op members would have liked.
The company produced its first
cheeses in time for last summer's
Flavours of Perth food fair in
Stratford. For some of the original
group working to replace the
Millbank plant, being able to hand
out samples of cheese to the
thousands of visitors was a huge
accomplishment, Reid remembers.
The food fair was the beginning
of talking to consumers about
what kind of products they
liked, Reid says. "A lot of the
cheeses we made at the beginning we
don't make now.
"I think it almost gets confusing
for store owners," Reid says. "They
don't even know about goat cheese
and you go there with 16 different
products it's too much. We can go to
them now and say, through what
we've done, 'these sell the best and
you're likely to do the best with
these'."
Most popular products have been
curds, a spreadible seasoned fromage
and feta but the company makes
gouda, old cheddar and marble
cheese, among others.
In trying to research how large the
potential market there was for their
cheeses the co-op's members talked
to store owners, but since it was an
entirely new product, it was difficult
for them to give any kind of realisitc
estimate, Reid says. "They would say
'we'll try it, and go from there.' I
guess we get the general sense that
recipes calling for goat's milk cheese
are showing up more and more and
generally that there's a growing
demand for it."
He also notes that the traditional
Canadian population is not even
replacing itself in terms of
reproduction and the new immigrants
who are keeping Canada growing are
coming from lands with a goat -milk
tradition.
When the co-op was forming,
Reid specifically asked that no more
than 25 per cent of co-op's
membership be active farmers. Today
the company has four classes of