Finding Local Food in Manitoba – Online Resources for Farmers and Eaters

As any farmer who has embarked on the journey of selling local food will tell you, marketing directly to consumers is about more than producing a healthy, tasty and desirable food product. It is also about making connections with those who are interested in eating such a product. There are many methods of building a network of customers. A few you might consider.

• Build your own website (www.wordpress.com is a free website building tool that you might check out)
• Attend conferences, events and workshops where you will interact with potential customers. Or better yet – give talks at them
• Knock on doors
• Put up posters
• Find on-line listings of “local food”
• Advertise in classifieds
• Word of mouth
• Facebook, twitter, etc.

I’m quite sure there are many more innovative strategies that farmers are using to reach out to new eaters/customers (please send me along your suggestions at c_anderson@umanitoba.ca and I will add them here). The main purpose of this blog post is to provide Manitoba direct marketers an inventory of the free on-line spaces to list your farm and your farm product.
These are great resources to connect with those consumers who are just starting to become interested in ‘local food’ and are looking to make connections with Manitoba farmers. The first thing that many of these folks will do is a Google search to try to find you. Lots of times, these listings may pop up high on the Google hit list and be the first place consumer’s look. They are all free (as far as I can tell). You might have to do a little bit of exploring on each site to find out how to get your farm/ranch listed but it is likely well worth the time. One last thing I would suggest is to make sure to keep your posting updated – if something changes (especially contact information or new product offerings), make an effort to keep your listing up to date. I hope these are helpful to all you farmers/ranchers/gardeners out there who are selling or looking to start selling into local markets. And for all of you eaters out there – these are great places to find clean, healthy and fair food!

Please feel free to email me with any listings that I have missed (c_anderson@umanitoba.ca)

Description	Website Link
Eat well guide – North American guide of local food producers	http://www.eatwellguide.org
A great site of local food producers in North America but, as of Nov. 11, there isn’t one listing in Manitoba?	http://www.localharvest.org
100 mile food tv – listing of farms offering local food	http://100mile.foodtv.ca/find
For grassfed livestock	http://www.eatwild.com/products/canada.html
Organic food council – lists organic AND non-certified / natural producers	http://www.organicfoodcouncil.org/files/downloads/Down%20to%20Earth%20listing_updatedforwebsite_March2009.pdf
An on-line form with a pretty basic listing of farms offering local food in MB and Sask.	http://forum.stopthehogs.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3
Ethical food market listings	http://www.aquarianonline.com/guide.htm#directory
MB government – u-pick listings	http://web2.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/upick/index.php
For u-pick farms	http://www.pickyourown.org/
Winnipeg humane society certification	http://www.winnipeghumanesociety.ca/animal_Issues_And_News/WHS_Certified.php
As much as it pains me to put this on here, this site is provided by Helman’s the mayonnaise company. Nonetheless, it may be a good link to potential customers/eaters	http://www.eatrealeatlocal.ca/
100 mile diet group	http://100milemanitoba.org/
Manitoba Shopping List	http://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/food/consumers/index.html
100 mile radius website	http://www.100mileradius.ca/
List your product on free classifieds like Kijiji	http://winnipeg.kijiji.ca/
Or here at Winnipeg buy and sell	http://www.winnipegbuyandsell.com/
Or at buysell.com	http://www.buysell.com/root/Manitoba/index.aspx