Source: Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food
When consumers think of the New York steak, immediately the image of a choice cut of meat comes to mind. This is one of the things that convinced Lester Lodoen of Classic Meats in Fox Valley it was the right name for his new product.
“When we did the market research at the Saskatchewan Food Industry Development Centre, there was a group of us together, and we had to come up with a name that was no more than three words long," he explains. "We tried Meat Treats, but that was like dog food. We tried Trimmers, but that implied cuts of poor quality meat. One guy came up with New York Stick—we said OK. The New York steak is a very good cut of meat. We trademarked it. It is good to go.”
The product in question is a pre-cooked, hand-held meat snack. It is an 85-gram beef steakette on a popsicle-type stick. It is vacuum-packed, should be refrigerated at 4ºC or frozen, and is made with secondary cuts of meat.
“I have been working with meat quality and beef for a number of years," says Lodoen. "One of the people working with me came up with the concept that we somehow had to increase the value of the secondary cuts of meat, because you can always sell the primary cuts. We wanted to go beyond just making hamburgers. We took this idea to the Food Centre at the University of Saskatchewan, and worked with them to develop the process and the product.”
Lodoen is also a beef producer, who long ago realized that the farm economy runs in a constantly evolving world.
The Lodoen family farm has been a value-added operation from the time of Lester's father, but, he explains, marketing a new product today is a totally different ball game then it was 20 years ago. Market research has led Lodoen to the convenience sector, but right now the company's biggest push is toward food services: getting into hockey arenas, curling rinks, gas stations and convenience stores—wherever convenience food services are required.
“We are in the value chain program," he says, "and in our value chain we have a food broker working with us. Ten or 15 years ago, anyone could market their product themselves, but now, if you don’t know the people, it is difficult. We are working with a group that has a lot of connections to different sources. What you need today is a distributor who will take you on.”
Lodoen says he making good and steady progress in his endeavours.
“Beside beef, we have BBQ pork on a stick as well. We are talking about the New York Stick family of products, really. It consists of Spiced Beef, BBQ Pork, Southwest Chicken and Mediterranean Chicken. Now we have a couple of distribution companies that are very interested in helping us distribute it.
“I would say to anyone getting into this type of business today: it's not enough to just have an idea. You better research it, and know where you want to go with it, and take advantage of the expertise and the resources that are out there.”
Lodoen wouldn’t trade what he is doing for the world.
“I like the marketing, although sometimes it can be frustrating. When you are developing a product, you always want to move faster and faster, but that doesn’t happen in this world any more."
Lodoen's company is still working with the Food Centre. He hopes eventually to be working with a co-packer, or a co-processor. They are currently selling the product in all the Saskatchewan Made stores, and have placed it in a couple of schools in Regina and a couple of stores in rural Saskatchewan. It is also being sold in Alberta and Ontario.
Lodoen hopes his New York Stick will make it big in the realm of hand-held food, which some experts have already identified as the food of the future.
For more information, contact:
Lester Lodoen
Classic Meats and Double L Farms
Fox Valley
(306) 666-4447 (tel)
(306) 666-4448 (fax)
doublelfarms@sasktel.net
Locally Produced Food-- A Way to Healthier Eating
Source: Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food
Have you ever tasted a Saskatchewan-grown cantaloupe? What about a locally grown tomato? The flavour is exceptional. There are a number of ways in which consumers can experience the flavour of Saskatchewan, according to Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food Provincial Vegetable Crops Specialist Connie Achtymichuk, even if they don’t have a garden.
“Many communities have farmers’ markets," she says, "but another initiative that has just been started is a web-based local food directory. The project is in its early stages, but the idea is to connect local producers with local consumers. There are a number of groups involved, but the lead is Dr. Daryl Hepting, a professor at the University of Regina's computer sciences department. Dr. Hepting has already started a discussion group to find out who is interested, and to collect ideas. Provided funding can be accessed, the project will go ahead this year.”
This project, along with other forms of direct marketing, will enable the Saskatchewan vegetable industry to expand, says Achtymichuk.
“The industry is small, and the growing season is short. This makes it difficult for Saskatchewan’s vegetable producers to break into traditional markets, but the quality and flavour of the vegetables being grown is exceptional. Because of Saskatchewan’s climate, there are very few pests that damage vegetable crops.”
Most vegetables, therefore, are grown with little or no pesticides. Organically grown produce is also available.
“The Canada Food Guide encourages eating five to 10 servings of fruit and vegetables a day, so why not try produce from a local garden?" she asks. "Not only are there health benefits in doing so, but consider picking up vegetables from a local garden: what a good way to expose children to where their food comes from. Develop a relationship with the person who grows your food, and they’ll be willing to fill requests if you want something that they don’t have.”
By buying locally, everybody wins. The producer has a market that commands a fair price, and the consumer gets to enjoy vegetables at their peak freshness.
“You’ll also be doing your part to protect the environment, considering the fact that most of the produce you buy has been trucked great distances.”
For more information, contact:
Connie Achtymichuk
Provincial Specialist, Vegetable Crops
Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food
(306) 787-2755
Have you ever tasted a Saskatchewan-grown cantaloupe? What about a locally grown tomato? The flavour is exceptional. There are a number of ways in which consumers can experience the flavour of Saskatchewan, according to Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food Provincial Vegetable Crops Specialist Connie Achtymichuk, even if they don’t have a garden.
“Many communities have farmers’ markets," she says, "but another initiative that has just been started is a web-based local food directory. The project is in its early stages, but the idea is to connect local producers with local consumers. There are a number of groups involved, but the lead is Dr. Daryl Hepting, a professor at the University of Regina's computer sciences department. Dr. Hepting has already started a discussion group to find out who is interested, and to collect ideas. Provided funding can be accessed, the project will go ahead this year.”
This project, along with other forms of direct marketing, will enable the Saskatchewan vegetable industry to expand, says Achtymichuk.
“The industry is small, and the growing season is short. This makes it difficult for Saskatchewan’s vegetable producers to break into traditional markets, but the quality and flavour of the vegetables being grown is exceptional. Because of Saskatchewan’s climate, there are very few pests that damage vegetable crops.”
Most vegetables, therefore, are grown with little or no pesticides. Organically grown produce is also available.
“The Canada Food Guide encourages eating five to 10 servings of fruit and vegetables a day, so why not try produce from a local garden?" she asks. "Not only are there health benefits in doing so, but consider picking up vegetables from a local garden: what a good way to expose children to where their food comes from. Develop a relationship with the person who grows your food, and they’ll be willing to fill requests if you want something that they don’t have.”
By buying locally, everybody wins. The producer has a market that commands a fair price, and the consumer gets to enjoy vegetables at their peak freshness.
“You’ll also be doing your part to protect the environment, considering the fact that most of the produce you buy has been trucked great distances.”
For more information, contact:
Connie Achtymichuk
Provincial Specialist, Vegetable Crops
Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food
(306) 787-2755
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The Quest For Superior Spice Crops Gains Ground in Saskatchewan
Source: Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food
Saskatoon’s Plant Biotechnology Institute (PBI) has been in the forefront of the development of new varieties of spices such as dill, fennel, anise and caraway. Now that cumin has been identified as an opportunity crop for Saskatchewan, an Agriculture Development Fund research project (#20050711) will help replicate some of the PBI's success with this new crop, according to Alison Ferrie, a research officer at the National Research Council (NRC).
“We have been doing this work for a number of years now, and we just want to formalize it," she says. "We are producing more and more lines, which is why we needed the extra funding. Dr. Doug Waterer, a plant scientist at the University of Saskatchewan, is looking after the field aspect of this project, and I am looking after the laboratory aspect at PBI."
The PBI's scientists can do the research, but they cannot grow the new lines out in the field, so they have turned to Dr. Waterer, who will collaborate with the PBI to evaluate the new lines. Ferrie says the PBI is now going to move on to cumin, which is an important species for the Saskatchewan Herb and Spice Association. Scientists have begun the lab work to develop a microspore culture double haploid protocol for cumin. Double haploid technology was developed in the 1960s, and is still very useful today.
“Double haploid technology involves taking immature pollen grains—which are microspores—giving them the right conditions and, if everything is right in terms of genotypes, the right donor plant conditions, the right media and the right culture conditions, we can get embryos developing from these pollen grains.
“This is not a normal developmental process," Ferrie explains, "because, under normal development, you would get the immature pollen grains maturing into the mature pollen grain and fertilizing the egg cell. Then you get seed. We are changing the developmental path to get this immature pollen grain to convert into an embryo. Once you get that embryo grown into a plant, you have a homozygous pure line, so if you grow out these double haploids in the field, they all will be uniform. The next generation will look exactly the same.”
In a normal breeding program, explains Ferrie, you would make a cross between two parents that look good and you would have to keep backcrossing and backcrossing to get a uniform line.
“But here, we can develop a uniform line in one generation. This means it can save time and breeding, and that is very important, especially for these herbs, spices and nutraceutical plants, because there is so much variation in them. This results in problems for some of the medical plants, if you are trying to make clinical trials. You may collect samples from this group of plants over here and you get this level of compound that is beneficial in the fight against a disease, and you go into another group of plants and you get this level of active compound and it doesn’t show any beneficial effect. So what we are doing is producing a uniform line.”
Double haploid technology has proven extremely useful for crop development over and over again.
“This technology has been used by most canola breeding companies," she says. "A number of years ago, when I started at the PBI, we did a lot of canola work, and a lot of that technology is being used by canola breeders to this day. For those species, much breeding has been done, so there are many uniform lines out there. But for these herbs and spices, since the active ingredient is so important, this technology is particularly valuable as well."
The ADF funds are going to be used in the lab to develop the lines of cumin, while Dr. Waterer will test all the lines that have been developed so far.
For more information, contact:
Alison Ferrie, PhD
Plant Biotechnology Institute
National Research Council
Alison.ferrie@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
(306) 975-5993
Saskatoon’s Plant Biotechnology Institute (PBI) has been in the forefront of the development of new varieties of spices such as dill, fennel, anise and caraway. Now that cumin has been identified as an opportunity crop for Saskatchewan, an Agriculture Development Fund research project (#20050711) will help replicate some of the PBI's success with this new crop, according to Alison Ferrie, a research officer at the National Research Council (NRC).
“We have been doing this work for a number of years now, and we just want to formalize it," she says. "We are producing more and more lines, which is why we needed the extra funding. Dr. Doug Waterer, a plant scientist at the University of Saskatchewan, is looking after the field aspect of this project, and I am looking after the laboratory aspect at PBI."
The PBI's scientists can do the research, but they cannot grow the new lines out in the field, so they have turned to Dr. Waterer, who will collaborate with the PBI to evaluate the new lines. Ferrie says the PBI is now going to move on to cumin, which is an important species for the Saskatchewan Herb and Spice Association. Scientists have begun the lab work to develop a microspore culture double haploid protocol for cumin. Double haploid technology was developed in the 1960s, and is still very useful today.
“Double haploid technology involves taking immature pollen grains—which are microspores—giving them the right conditions and, if everything is right in terms of genotypes, the right donor plant conditions, the right media and the right culture conditions, we can get embryos developing from these pollen grains.
“This is not a normal developmental process," Ferrie explains, "because, under normal development, you would get the immature pollen grains maturing into the mature pollen grain and fertilizing the egg cell. Then you get seed. We are changing the developmental path to get this immature pollen grain to convert into an embryo. Once you get that embryo grown into a plant, you have a homozygous pure line, so if you grow out these double haploids in the field, they all will be uniform. The next generation will look exactly the same.”
In a normal breeding program, explains Ferrie, you would make a cross between two parents that look good and you would have to keep backcrossing and backcrossing to get a uniform line.
“But here, we can develop a uniform line in one generation. This means it can save time and breeding, and that is very important, especially for these herbs, spices and nutraceutical plants, because there is so much variation in them. This results in problems for some of the medical plants, if you are trying to make clinical trials. You may collect samples from this group of plants over here and you get this level of compound that is beneficial in the fight against a disease, and you go into another group of plants and you get this level of active compound and it doesn’t show any beneficial effect. So what we are doing is producing a uniform line.”
Double haploid technology has proven extremely useful for crop development over and over again.
“This technology has been used by most canola breeding companies," she says. "A number of years ago, when I started at the PBI, we did a lot of canola work, and a lot of that technology is being used by canola breeders to this day. For those species, much breeding has been done, so there are many uniform lines out there. But for these herbs and spices, since the active ingredient is so important, this technology is particularly valuable as well."
The ADF funds are going to be used in the lab to develop the lines of cumin, while Dr. Waterer will test all the lines that have been developed so far.
For more information, contact:
Alison Ferrie, PhD
Plant Biotechnology Institute
National Research Council
Alison.ferrie@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
(306) 975-5993
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