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A play-by-play of the 2009 Culinary Tourism Society BC Conference

11 Comments Karen HamiltonMarch 9, 2009

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by media reps from Singapore and Belgium who were interested to know where to eat in Vancouver. It prompted a flurry of conversation amongst Twitter Vancouverites on culinary experiences that are not to be missed in the city. Plans were made to summarize my personal picks plus everyone’s feedback in an effort to describe the culinary highlights of the Lower Mainland.

As I was working on this new article, news came in of an upcoming conference by Culinary Tourism Society BC on exactly this topic. With the help of Paul Kamon of Urban Diner, I got in touch with the organizers and secured a media pass to said conference, which happens to start this morning at 8am. (Thanks, Paul.)

From now till its scrumptious end, I will be recapping each session from my spot in the crowd and uploading quick snaps of what we are nibbling on. It’s going to be a long day but hopefully an enlightening and delicious one. Bookmark this post and keep up with me as we eat and talk our way through it all.

Sessions at a glance

The sessions listed below will be hyperlinked to its respective recap as we get through each one.  Session summaries are available at the CTSBC conference page.

1. BC Breakfast
2. Conference welcome
3. Culinary Tourism: “Why now?”
4. Fresh menus for large groups: a behind-the-scenes look
5. Where to source local ingredients and how to make them pay for themselves
6. Morning break
7. SuperHost® programs and tourism business essentials
8. Your Culinary Tourism team, increasing profits through people
9. BC Experiences lunch
10. Culinary tourism on the global scale
11. Marketing your vision: how to get your message out in today’s economy
12. Afternoon break and sponsor showcase
13. Learning from our neighbours: an educational look at Culinary Tourism in Ontario
14. Celebrating the best tastes in BC: past, present and future
15. Taste of BC: Vancouver Trolley hosts the Phantom Culinary Experience

8am – BC Breakfast

Attendees were emailed the itinerary for breakfast and lunch one day before the conference.  I don’t know how the rest reacted to the news; my salivary glands had a field day.  Just take a look at the menu whipped up by Chef Bernard Casavant, the proprietor and Executive Chef of The Sonora Room at Burrowing Owl Estate Winery:

Cold pressed Harkers organic apple juice
Preserved plum, ginger infused juice
Peppermint, cranberry juice
Dried fruit, nut granola crisps
Raspberry infused goats milk yogurt
Assorted whole BC fruit

Organic cold cuts by Sebastian & Co.
Baked goods by BC Junior Chefs and Okanagan Grocery
Petite cinnamon, hazelnut buns
Dried blueberry scones
Terra Breads artisan rolls
Unsalted butter by Island Farms
Chef Bernard’s organic quince, spiced apple preserve
Osoyoos peach preserve
Vista D’Oro preserves

Terra Breads french toast
Preserved blackberry, organic apple compote
House churned apricot, lavender butter

Preserved heirloom tomato, Moon Struck feta cheese frittata
Sebastian & Co. house cured smoked bacon
Sebastian & Co. specialty breakfast sausages

Ethical Bean coffee
Tea Room teas

I’m not much of a morning person, but I will make a concerted effort to be at front of this breakfast line in order to sample everything listed above.

8:30am – Conference welcome

The emcees are none other than Chefs Julian Bond and Robert Clark. Bond is Executive Chef and Program Director of the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts; Clark is the Executive Chef at C Restaurant. Both are also actively involved with the Chef’s Table Society, who puts on the fantastic BC Spot Prawn Festival each year, amongst other things.

One of the first things they’ve told us is that we’re having S.E.X. at this conference…

SEX, or “sticky exercises”, will occur throughout the day to create lively discussions between conference attendees, panelists, and moderators. Discussion will be facilitated by the use of sticky notes (thus the acronym) to pass attendee inquiries to the emcees and moderators.

Quotables:

“As we travel more, our food should travel less.” –Robert Clark

9am – Culinary Tourism: “Why now?”

There has never been a better time to celebrate culinary tourism in British Columbia than now…are you ready?

Keynote speaker Barbara-Jo McIntosh of Books to Cooks took the stage to comment on the importance of Culinary Tourism in this day and age. She just returned from Paris and shared her observations on how the BC community has a culture of sharing and mutual support, much more so than the #1 most visited city on the planet. She appealed to the delegates to take advantage of this fraternity and to help each other promote BC as a culinary destination for the world.

Quotables:

“Food has become the most important ingredient [to tourism].”

9:15am – Fresh menus for large groups: a behind-the-scenes look

Using the 2009 CTSBC breakfast and lunch as examples, Chef Bernard Casavant and Sutton Place Hotel Food & Beverage Manager Wolfgang Dauke describe how they developed a local, seasonal repertoire for the day’s menu.

Key messages from both speakers revolved around seasonality, environmentalism and sustainability, and showcasing the best artisans of the province to locals and visitors alike.

9:30am – Where to source local ingredients and how to make them pay for themselves

Local foods are the foundation of any memorable culinary experience. Find out who’s selling them and how to feature them in profitable ways.

Panel:

• Andrew Pollard – Vancouver Convention Centre
• Meeru Dhalwala – Vij’s & Rangoli
• Brandon Owen – Neptune Food Service
• Patrick Murphy – Vista D’oro Farms
• Jaclyn Laic – Eat BC! Program Director (panel moderator)

Meeru Dhalwala of Vij’s  and Patrick Murphy of Vista d’Oro described how they began their partnership to grow and cook with local tomatoes, to alleviate Vij’s frustrations with the sub-par quality of imported tomatoes.  The next step in their joint project is optimizing the preservation of the region’s crops as excellent canned product.  Meeru further explained how Vij’s manages to keep overhead low and reduce waste by supporting local producers.

Questions submitted by sticky note to the emcees are focussed on the distribution of local produce year-round.  The key challenge is  finding economic ways to preserve fresh ingredients with minimal loss of quality.

Andrew Pollard of the Vancouver Convention Centre emphasized the importance of treating every visitor to Vancouver as a potential culinary tourist.  The Convention Centre does its part to showcase BC through its conscientious support of local producers.  One way they support BC is the exclusive offering of BC wine to conferences held at the facility.

Local impact is enormous:

• Great customer feedback
• High economic return to the region
• Decreased overhead with respect to transport
• Minimized environmental impact

The Convention Centre shared their approach for purchasing priority:

1. Locally and organically produced
2. Locally produced – with conventional methods
3. Organic (prefer local conventional to organic imported)

Meeru and Patrick talk about trendsetting — demand begins with at least 2 people talking over a table to make change.  In response to a delegate question about increasing local responsibility amongst consumers, Meeru also mentioned one of Vij’s grassroots initiatives, VanGrow, which is a forum supported by many young, keen locals who grow produce on their own urban plots.

Brandon Owen of Neptune Food Service covers the very real issue of getting growers’ crops to market.  Food Safety compliance,  adolescence in chef and consumer education regarding local growers, and sticker shock compared to industrial farms are all obstacles to grower profitability.

Quotables:

“For every $1 spent on local ingredients, more than $0.90 get recirculated to the regional economy.” –Jaclyn Laic

“Tomatoes to Indian food are the same way that tomatoes are to Italian food.” –Meeru Dhalwala

“Right now, it’s hard for us to compete with big produce coming from Mexico or California.”  –Meeru Dhalwala on relative pricing of local ingredients

“Today’s convention delegate is tomorrow’s culinary tourist. If we can give them a taste of the best that BC has to offer, this will pay us back [with subsequent visits].” –Andrew Pollard

“It’s not easy (and inherently advantageous) – but [buying local] is the right thing to do.  For a small producer, a single dinner at the Centre could clean out a week’s supply.” –Andrew Pollard

“Do restauranteurs have flexibility to work away from the printed menu?” –Attendee question on the challenge of local suppliers to meet the non-seasonal demands of many restaurants today

“As a chef…it’s all about the passion and it’s all about the story.” –Brandon Owen on the growing support by chefs of sharing local producers’ story and educating their guests on the realities of the growing season

“$0.26 of every dollar that a tourist spends goes to food. Identification of local product can go a long way to a memorable culinary experience.” –Jaclyn Laic

“The desire is there. Now we have to work on logistics.” –Meeru Dhalwala on returning to local, seasonal  cooking and eating

10:30am – Break: Great tastes of BC

• Ethical Bean coffee
• Tea Room teas
• Platters of baked biscotti by Okanagan Grocers
• Cucumber, mint, lemon infused iced water
• Bremner’s blueberry juice

10:45am – SuperHost® Programs and Tourism Business Essentials

Yavhel [Jhah-vell] Velazquez from the SuperHost Program of Tourism BC gave a brief overview of the programs dedicated to providing exceptional customer service – commitments that help BC’s tourism workforce “go that extra mile”.

What I got out of this session is that there is a government-sanctioned support network available to restauranteurs and hospitality providers to assist in the finessing of culinary tourism in the province.

Quotables:

“68% of customers leave a business because of indifferent service.”

11am – Your Culinary Tourism Team, Increasing Profits Though People

Food can’t walk itself onto the plate and it can’t talk about itself either. Your serving staff has an intimate front line connection with your guests and that makes them very important. Server/guest interaction is a prime opportunity to enhance any dining experience.

Panel:

• Robert “Frenchy” Gagne – Joe Fortes Seafood & Chop House
• Sebastian Cortez – Sebastian & Co Organic Meats
• Rayana Blackwell – Mr. Pickwick’s Fish & Chips
• Debbie Yule – Go2HR (panel moderator)

Frenchy started the ball rolling with the concept of “enlightened service”: people [staff] first, then customers.  Joe Fortes utilizes SuperHost training and another program called FloorWalker to encourage their best staff to pick up management skills in a hands-on way.

Other management approaches he subscribes to:

• “Constant, gentle pressure”
• Sincerety of management
• Listen and take action on criticism

Sebastian Cortez lists talking points for the crowd:

• Confidence sells: empower your employees with knowledge
• Think “slow”: add value with time and get your staff excited about slow food
  • Example: consider duck confit vs. duck breast on the menu
  • If staff can focus attention on all teh time that goes into a preparing a dish or a product, more people will feel that it’s something special – not something easily whipped up at home
• Bring home the farm: put employees in touch with producers
  • Field trips to the farm to see how the animals are raised and understand where the products come from
• Share your vision: an employee’s ability to share your vision with customers is key to your organization’s success
  • In order to act as the best possible ambassador for your product/service, they need to intimately understand how and why you do what you do

Rayana Blackwell covered the subject of mutual loyalty between staff and management.  She described Mr. Pickwick’s hiring practices and track records:

• Average staff loyalty of 28 years
• Paid working interviews: existing staff helps in the hiring of new employees
• Share in the ownership of your business:  royalties for products, recipes
• Respect and partnership are critical to retaining loyal staff

Quotables:

“Hire slow, fire quick. Talent is the key.” –Frenchy Gagne on taking the time to find fit

“Try to source people who come from a similar path or share the same visions as yourself.” –Sebastian Cortez

“We based our business on relationships.” –Sebastian Cortez

“Staff are going to make or break your business.” –Rayana Blackwell

“Why did you leave the boss from hell? It was because of lack of respect. Why did you leave a great boss? Usually out of extenuating circumstances – not a lack of respect.” –Rayana Blackwell

“Pride stands for Personal Responsibility in Respecting Excellence.” –Rayana Blackwell

12pm – BC Experiences Lunch: Chef Bernard Casavant, Sutton Place Hotel, and Junior BC Chefs prepare a Feast of BC

Check out the lunch line-up in store for us spoiled attendees:

Chef Ben Genaille (VCC)
Smoked Voyageur sockeye salmon, toasted Nass River seawee, bannock cracker

Chef Andrea Carlson (Bishop’s)
Hazelmere Organic Farm sunchoke custard on a fresh thyme breton biscuit
Sunchoke salad

Jason Pleym (Two Rivers Specialty Meats)
The “Cure” handcrafted charcuterie:
Dry cured venison and pork sausage flavoured with juniper and tellicherry black pepper
Saucisson Sec: pork belly, tellicherry black pepper, organic garlic
Testa Cotta: cured, cooked head/shoulder rillette, rolled and confit with Italian herbs
Artisan crostini

A selection of Terra Breads

Moon Struck Cheese
White Grace
Tomme d’Or

Chef Brock Bowes (Burrowing Owl)
Organic cider glazed Sloping Hill roast pork loin
Sebastian & Co’s pancetta bacon
Wild mushroom, gala apple sauté
Evergreen salad, Valentines Farm organic plum vinegar

Chef Roger Planiden (Sumac Ridge)
Pan seared Pacific Coast sablefish fillet, sautéed lemon
Local squash gnocch with fresh basil
Goats cheese panna cotta
Toasted BC hazelnuts, truffle vinaigrette
Served with Sumac Ridge 2006 White Meritage

Beverage Stations
Granville Island ales and lager
Okanagan Spirits
Rustic Roots Wines

1:30pm – Culinary Tourism On The Global Scale

Erik Wolf of the International Culinary Tourism Association explores current industry trends and shares some of the more unique examples of culinary tourism around the globe.

[Forgive me if I'm a little less coherent from this point on...lunch was memorable but very heavy on the drink component!]

Global food trends show a distinct dichotomy:

• Healthy; sustainable; relationships, partnerships matter
• Unhealthy; unsustainable; who cares about relationships

Global travel trends:

• Shorter, more frequent trips
• Hands-on, experiential
• Renewed appreciation for home city
• Avoid hassles / risks of travel
• Saving money, cutting back

Erik’s memorable experiences around the world:

• Breakfast, Table Top Mountain
• Dinner, Napa Wine Cave
• Feast of Fields, BC
• Pretzel carts, New York City
• Guiness storehouse tour, Dublin
• Yak cheese, Tibet
• Rocky Mountain oysters
• Singapore hawker stands
• Ylang Ylang creme brulee, Comoros Islands

Components of Culinary Tourism:

• Culinary / retail grocery
• Culinary tours, guides, packages, and agents
• Culinary destinations
• Dining
• Drinking
• Farms and farmers’ markets

What is Cascadian cuisine?

Erik recommends collaborating with other regions in the Cascades (Pacific Northwest) to represent the uniqueness of Cascadian cuisine.  He uses these analogies:

• People identify with Italian cuisine, but not necessarily with Piedmont cuisine
• In the same vein:
  • Swedish vs. Scandinavian
  • Arizona vs. Southwestern
  • BC vs. Cascadian

Erik’s key message is collaboration on a grander scale – beyond your own business; beyond Vancouver; beyond BC, even. He recommends working together with others in the collective region to “grow the entire pie, not just your slice of it”.

Media relations and social networking also make it into Erik’s message.  Official websites and mainstream media are starting to be shadowed by online word of mouth from blogs, forums, and other social networks.  He argues that the feedback from networks are more statistically significant than the word of any one critic.

Quotables by Erik:

“I’ve been to over 57 conferences and BC always has the best food!”

“Culinary tourism is about what is unique and memorable.”

“Culinary tourism is not pretentious or exclusive.”

“Turn locals into ambassadors.”

2pm – Marketing Your Vision: How To Get Your Message Out In Today’s Economy

Your establishment is unique, you are devoted to local ingredients, your staff is knowledgeable and you have a wine list that even Anthony Gismondi would be proud of – you are one of The Best Tastes in British Columbia…but nobody knows! Marketing doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive; it’s all about strategy, time investment and human connection.

Featured Panelists:

• Deirdre Campbell – Tartan PR
• Murray Driediger – BCfresh

Murray Driediger of BCfresh provided the bigger picture of the competitive environment and consumer behaviours of North America at large.

In order to market BCfresh to the masses, the organization:

• re-branded from “Lower Mainland Vegetable Distributors Inc.” to a more accessible brand name
• put a face to their business, using the profiles of their growers (high graphic packaging, grower photo shoot)
• replaced plastic packaging with EPI resin (biodegradeable material) wherever possible
• invested in smart sponsorships
• contributed editorials to print / mainstream media and  tied it in with ad placements
• upgraded website with new brand and launched the BCfresh Recipe Club
• placed radio and print spots spotlighting one or more of the 32 grower families of BCfresh

Dierdre Campbell of Tartan PR now up on stage to talk about trends and the quadruple bottom line:  people, profit, planet, and place.

Trends:

• Bringing back the ’50s
• Farm to table: farm fresh
• Deals
• Luxury desserts
• Sliders
• Green hotels and restaurants
• Support of local businesses
• More affordable tasting menus
• Stealth travel
• Organic is still strong (local is taking over)
• New travel photo technology
• Staycations
• Flashpacker / hybrid travel
• Better airline etiquette
• Bar chefs and classic cocktails

How does one build word of mouth? Become a storyteller.

1. Answer these questions: Who are you? What does your business stand for? What are your core values, your core purpose, and long term vision?
2. Define your corporate story around these answers.  Identify examples of how your business lives up to this story.
3. Train everyone one in your business to be a storyteller.
4. Identify who needs to hear this story (stakeholder analysis).
5. Identify and create the many different ways your stories can be told.

Dierdre outlined several relevant areas of research and consumer profiling that may help local businesses that target travellers:

• CTC Explorer Quotient
• NEO Consumers – how do you attract them?
  • Check out the Inside the Affluent Space study (PDF) recently released by American Express

Quotables:

“Any time you can get a road sign up, that’s pretty much the best mileage that you can get.” –Murray Driediger

“Sustainability is here to stay – it is definitely a point of difference.” –Dierdre Campbell

“What is British Columbia’s regional story? How does your business fit into it?” –Dierdre Campbell

“The #1 reason that businesses fail, CEOs fail, is because of bad communication.” –Dierdre Campbell

3pm – Break & Sponsor Showcase: Participate. Sample. Smell. Taste. Talk. BC’s best.

• Ethical Bean coffee
• Energy Tea – Tea Room “T”
• Blended Harvest Fruit smoothies
• Energy cookies
• Powell River Juice Co.
• Organic apples from Harkers Farm

3:15pm – Learning From Our Neighbours: An Educational Look At Culinary Tourism In Ontario

This time, our distinguished speakers are Suzanne Caskie and Dr. Paula Johnson Tew, hailing from Ontario’s Centre for Hospitality & Culinary Arts at  George Brown College.  Having recently launched the nation’s first Culinary Tourism Management Program, these ladies present an academic (albeit still accessible) spin to all of the learning today about Culinary Tourism and what exactly that means.

Culinary Tourism includes any tourism experience in which one learns about, appreciates, and/or consumes food and drink that reflects the local, regional, or national cuisine, heritage, culture, tradition, or culinary techniques.

Highlights:

• Participants in culinary tourism around the world: Australia, Scotland, South Africa, USA, BC, Quebec, Nova Scotia
• Don’t forget about secondary stakeholders of Culinary Tourism: lawyers, real estate firms, advisors, investors, project managers — these stakeholders also need to be informed of the concept and its progress in BC

Five major questions that a Culinary Tourism provider should reflect upon:

1. Who are my stakeholders?
2. What are their stakes?
3. What opportunities and challenges do my stakeholders present?
4. What responsibilities (economic, legal, ethical) do I have to my stakeholders?
5. What strategies or actions should I take to best deal with stakeholder challenges and opportunities?

Quotables:

“[Paula: ] BC has apples, fine dining, great food that we have been experiencing all day — [Suzanne interjects:] I weighed 100 lbs when I got here on Thursday!”

It was Paula’s birthday, so conference organizers came out with a bouquet of flowers as the entire delegation sang Happy Birthday to a surprised Paula.

Impromptu recognition was just given to Chef Bernard and his team for all their culinary creations throughout the conference.

4:15pm – Celebrating The Best Tastes In BC: Past, Present & Future

CTSBC has been working diligently since 2001 to recognize and support culinary tourism operators across the province.  Chair Geoffrey Howes quickly ran through the CTSBC accreditation program and the criteria that each candidate organization must meet.

4:30pm – Taste of BC: Vancouver Trolley hosts the Phantom Culinary Experience

This last segment of the CTSBC Conference takes delegates all over the city on 5 different culinary tours.  Each tour visits a minimum of 3 hotspots in a particular gastronomic region where attendees partake in great foo d and wine.  No one knows which tour you get assigned to — thus the phantom component to the evening.

Phantom Culinary Tours and Tour Leaders:

• Bob Sung – A Wok Around China Town
• Marcus von Albrecht & Bob Parrotta – Little Italy
• Lee Murphy and Julian Bond– Granville Island Market Tour –> my tour
  
• Kathy McAree and John Schreiner– Wine & Culinary Delights
• Karmen Birss and Heidi Noble– Restaurant Row

Granville Island Market Tour

Trolley #2 suited up for a series of visits around Granville Island with the effervescent Chef Julian Bond and Vista d’Oro proprietor Lee Murphy at the helm.

We all had a blast drinking and snacking through these neighbourhood landmarks:

Nu

Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts

Edible BC

Oyama Sausage

Granville Island Brewery

There are too many highlights during this tour for my exhausted self to recap in words (it may also have to do with the copious amounts of wine and beer that are still coursing through my bloodstream).  Please indulge yourself instead with the rest of the photo documentation of the tour by browsing the related images in the gallery below.  If you click on any thumbnail, they pop up all pretty-like and let you navigate back and forth.

7:30pm – Conference wrap-up at Sutton Place Hotel

After the revelries of the culinary tours, the Vancouver Trolleys returned attendees to the Sutton Place Hotel to end a full day of learning about and celebrating BC’s best.

I hope you found this live blog of the Culinary Tourism Society BC to be timely and educational. I know I had a wonderful time hearing about the collective efforts of the people in our province to get our culinary achievements on the world map.

Conference Photo Gallery

Below is where you will find visual representations of the CTSBC conference, should you be so inclined.

Categories: Events, Featured, Food, Food Purveyors

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