The Rural Voice, 2004-03, Page 18itha 4
ifference
'1h ir
Antony John and Tina
Vandenheuval grow crops all
,near round and serve some of
the country's MI) restaerarzts
Story and photo by Keikh
Roulston
Like most of his Perth County
neighbours Antony John
worries about how to pay the
bills and wishes this crops provided a
better living for his family. Not many
farmers on neighbouring
Sebringville-area farms, however, are
harvesting crops in February or have
up to 17 employees at peak season,
and none are stars of a television
show.
John is indeed unique, operating
Soiled Reputation, a farming
operation providing salad greens and
vegetables to high-end restaurants
across southern Ontario and starring
on "The Manic Organic" which will
be broadcast on the Home and
Garden Network beginning in March
after a run on The Food Network
earlier.
Even John's road to becoming a
farmer was different than most.
Born in Wales, he came to Canada
with his family in 1970 where they
lived in Mississauga and Oakville.
"Where we lived in Wales was
surrounded by beautiful farmland and
I sort of got thrust into this suburban
environment. Then I met a farm girl
(at University of Guelph where he
received a degree in wildlife biology)
and fell in love with her and fell in
love with the farm."
The farm girl was Tina
Vandenheuval whose father operated
14 THE RURAL VOICE
a dairy farm north of Sebringville.
"So right from University I worked
for Tina's father. It wasn't a big
stretch to go from moose nutrition to
cow nutrition," he chuckles. He'd
also been interested in veterinary
medicine so he really enjoyed being
around the dairy cattle.
John and Vandenheuval bought
the 78 -acre farm on which they live
from her father in 1991 and were
living in the house and renting out
the land with only a small vegetable
garden. John had a five-year plan to
develop a career as an artist.
"I quickly realized that in Canada
that wasn't going to get anywhere, so
I tried to find another way to use the
land we had in a more creative
aspect."
The road to where John and
Vandenheuval are today began in
1995.
"I was a landscaper for some
restaurants in Stratford. They knew
that we had a farm and that we grew
vegetables for ourselves. While I was
working at the gardens at the
restaurant they said 'why don't you
grow some lettuce for us'."
Tina was off for the summer from
being a job coach at the high school
so she took up the task of starting a
summer garden with just lettuces.
"Then one of the chefs came over
for dinner and brought us a bag of
commercially -available salad mix
from Cookstown Greens. It was like
an epiphany for me. I had no idea
that salad could be that varied — in
every way — texture, colour. So
from then on I worked with the chefs
in Stratford to develop our own salad
mix that was unique, that didn't
necessarily compete with what David
(Cohlmeyer) was doing (at
Cookstown Greens) but in fact
enhanced what he was doing in
restaurants. Quite often our products
are used side by side in Toronto
restaurants."
"Chefs are the first people to tell
you what's wrong with whatever
you're bringing in the door. The
restaurants we supply tend to be high
end and their standards are very
high."
Another growth in John's
knowledge of food and what
restaurants want began in the winter
of 1998 when he took cooking
lessons with Neil Baxter of Rundles
Restaurant in Stratford.
"It was a great opportunity to try
and learn the language the chefs were
speaking, to try and understand what
it is they want in terms of a supplier.
Now that I understood their cooking
methods, how they were using the
produce, I could start filling in the
blanks from our farm. It was a means
of communicating better with the