Big Questions About Small Batches
As consumers go nuts for products with that homemade touch, Joanna Tymkiw explores issues of food safety in commercial kitchens and farmers’ markets
All cookies are not created equal — at least according to my father, who graciously accepted Mr. Morgan’s platter of shortbread every year on Christmas Eve. This generous gesture of fanned-out crescents from his family to ours was proudly displayed; each buttery, celestial shape melted on our tongues like the snowflakes falling outside our windows.
Years into this tradition, I realized I had never once seen Dad take a bite. When I finally complained that this must be a personal protest against Mr. Morgan himself, he simply answered, “Have you ever met Mrs. Morgan?”
No, I thought, and my mind raced with images of a stranger’s hands fiddling with fingerprinted dough. I backed away and never ate one again. Sure, they were baked before touching my lips, but still, the human mind is one tough cookie.
But where one oven door closes, another opens, and the essence of homegrown is now what propels the food industry: enter stage left, small-batch goods.
Whether it’s pickles in a Mason jar or cured curiosities rolled tightly in parchment, we all know small batches when we see them: at high-end shops or open-air markets, they look as if they could have been plucked right out of Grandma’s cupboard (but with just enough labelling to let you know that they weren’t). And right now, they are everywhere.
However, I’ve found that as I’ve grown warier, the food world has become less so. The time seems ripe for an analysis of the commercial chemistry of smallbatch foods in order to help consumers understand exactly what they are purchasing and how it got there.
Wentsi Yeung, founder of local beverage company Culture Kombucha, began to witness first-hand the emphasis on proper food handling when she started working at the Ottawa-based organic food distributor Mountain Path. “I was really lucky to get that experience. I learned the hardcore logistics of food distribution and running a food space, as well as food manufacturing and processing. It was a good segue into operating my own food business.”
Indeed, a food premises licence is required for any space where food is prepared for public sale or distribution. Obtaining this licence is based on meeting a number of strict criteria, which fall under Ontario’s Health Protection and Promotion Act: everything from a facility’s ventilation and lighting to the placement and temperature requirements of sanitation stations must pass muster.
When applying for this licence, the applicant must also provide three copies of floor plans, have already obtained the green light from Ottawa Public Health, and be covered for $1 million in general commercial liability insurance. Not simple, but that is what is called for to maintain and operate what is deemed to be a sanitary food environment.
For Yeung, renting an already licensed kitchen facility was the best way to avoid these stumbling