When you think about food and beverage processing in Ontario, chances are your mind drifts south.
Large-scale operations. Big distribution hubs. Maybe a shiny facility off the 401. However, there’s another food story unfolding up north, one rooted in sovereignty, innovation, and self-determination. And it’s time the rest of the province started paying attention.
This fall, Emily Nanne of the National Circle for Indigenous Agriculture and Food (NCIAF) and a team member with CareersNOW! joined Lorraine Pitawanakwat, CareersNOW! Indigenous Lead, in hitting the road for a tour through the Far Northeast of Northern Ontario. Their mission: connect with Indigenous food producers, innovators, and community leaders reshaping what a local food system can look like. The trip, supported by CareersNOW! and Food and Beverage Ontario, wasn’t just a scenic drive. It was a statement of purpose.
“We wanted to speak to people at different stages of their food system journey,” Nanne explains. “From those just starting to reclaim traditional foodways, to those using modern tools to scale up, preserve, and process their harvests on their own terms.”
The 11 stops were as diverse as the people behind them. At Waxwing Commons in Timmins, a Métis co-owned ecological farmstead, Mike and Rachel are raising heritage pork, foraging traditional medicines, and producing healing salves and a signature fire cider, all born out of necessity and guided by deep intentionality. They’re even collaborating with a First Nations-led mycelium facility to reintroduce native mushroom colonies on their land.
In Sudbury, the team visited Collège Boréal, where commercial kitchen space is opening doors for Indigenous entrepreneurs. The college is engaging with communities to build tailored, community-driven training programs, not cookie-cutter curricula, but education rooted in local needs and knowledge.
Across each visit, a common thread emerged: innovation without compromise.
Indigenous communities are blending traditional knowledge with modern technology on their own terms. Dehydrators and freeze-dryers are being used to preserve medicine-rich foods for year-round use at the Wild Basket. Mushrooms are cultivated by Wahkohtowin Development not just for nourishment, but to remediate forest degradation left behind by logging operations.
And it’s not just about food. These systems are creating jobs, skill-building opportunities, and space for youth to imagine futures that don’t require leaving home behind.
“All of the opportunities exist,” says Nanne. “The barrier is that the infrastructure hasn’t caught up yet.”
That’s where programs like CareersNOW! come in. By connecting training, funding, and industry support to these self-determined efforts, they help bridge gaps without bulldozing over what’s already working.
Looking ahead, NCIAF and CareersNOW! hope to bring many of these producers and leaders to Sudbury for the Indigenous Land Symposium in February. Not to showcase them as case studies, but to give them the mic.
“They’re getting pressure to adopt so-called silver bullet solutions designed by organizations that don’t fully understand their communities,” says Nanne. “But a lot of those ‘solutions’ create more burdens than benefits. These communities already have the answers. What they need is support that respects their self-determination.”
The message is clear: the future of food in Ontario isn’t just about scale, efficiency, or southern strongholds. It’s about inclusion, recognition, and the kind of innovation that comes from lived experience, not just a lab.
Northern Ontario isn’t on the margins of the food system. It is the food system. You just have to know where to look.
