Chefs on the Farm

A few weeks ago, the VG Meats team was pleased to host some of Ontario’s best chefs, caterers and restaurateurs for a day of culinary education and discussion – and of course, good food. Guests included representatives from Oliver & Bonacini, Cabana, Cafe Boulud, Colette, Le Notre Bistro and more. It was great to see Steve from Sanagan’s as well as guests from Havergal College, Magic Oven and Mabel’s Bakery. We were blessed with blue skies and great weather – a perfect day for great food and exciting conversation!

The day started out at Pristine Gourmet. After that, the group headed to the VG Meats farm in Simcoe, where our guests were able to tour the farm, meet the cows, ask questions and enjoy the rural scenery (after all, we’re talking about a lot of city people here)! We enjoyed a wonderful lunch prepared by John Mullet of the Beach House in Port Dover and had some great discussions with members of the Southern Ontario food community.

There was plenty of talk about what makes a good beef protein and how to do it, our Tenderness Testing program and our handling of each animal. We shared our life’s mission with the group and asked them to participate in putting Ontario beef on the map as the world’s best. It was amazing to see how engaged and enthusiastic the group was – you can tell how much these people appreciate quality, ethics and transparency in the local food scene!

Once our tour of the farm was done and everyone had been given the opportunity to look around, ask questions and see where our products come from, the group packed up and took off for the VG Meats Meat Shop just down the road. There, we offered a detailed look at our operations, allowing them to truly understand each product’s path from farm to plate.

Our friends at 100 Km Foods wrote a fantastic blog post of their own after their visit to the farm – please check it out here! We truly appreciate their recognition of our hard work and dedication to quality. It’s was awesome to read this post and think wow – they really get it. Thanks again to their team for their support of VG!

A final and sincere thank you to everyone who took part in our chef’s event – we hope to do it again next year!