Returning the Dryden Cloverbelt Country Farmers' Market Downtown Initiates Food Security Infrastructure
At AgriTech North, supporting regional food security does not stop at growing food. It also means protecting the commercialization infrastructure that allows local producers to survive and scale. That is why we lead a delegation on February 23, 2026 to the City of Dryden council chambers, accompanied by the Cloverbelt Country Farmers' Market coordinator Samantha Allan, appearing on assignment of market President Beth Zurbrigg, and Fabian Velez, Chief Operations Officer (COO) of AgriTech North. All three attendees are also the board members of the Charitable non-profit True Wealth Foundation.
Together, we advocated for the return of the Cloverbelt Country Farmers’ Market to downtown Dryden, and presented why AgriTech North has been building what we describe as the "second rung" on the commercialization ladder: a staffed, year-round, accessible local retail and e-commerce channel that sits between the farmers’ market table and the highly regulated world of big-box retail, food service, and broader distribution. AgriTech North’s homepage presents the business as a local grocery store with year-round retail hours and delivery across Northwestern Ontario within the Winnipeg (MB), Dryden, Sioux Lookout, Fort Frances, and Thunder Bay corridors, while local reporting documented AgriTech North’s role in presenting the market-relocation case to Dryden council.
In a February 2026 local news report, Dryden Council in talks to move farmer’s market back downtown, journalist Jacob Henriksen-Willis reported that Benjamin Feagin Jr. presented the case for moving the Cloverbelt Country Farmers’ Market back from the Dryden AgCentre to the Dryden Memorial Arena parking lot in the downtown core. The arguments recorded there were practical, not symbolic: downtown improves accessibility for people who do not drive, improves exposure to after-work foot traffic, and gives a low-margin food market a better chance of staying alive. The same report records City CAO Roger Nesbitt supporting the downtown location because of the value and foot traffic it brings to the core.
That advocacy has now translated into practice. A public preview of the February 25, 2026 City of Dryden council document also described the request for a formal letter of support so the market and community partners could pursue grant funding for a permanent or retractable covered multi-use event structure at an appropriate site. In other words, this was not only a request to change location for the Farmers' Market, It was a request to strengthen the physical and commercial infrastructure that lets all market vendors prosper.
Following approval by the City of Dryden Council for the Cloverbelt Country Farmers' Market to return to downtown Dryden, the Market's membership voted to implement the migration, and was successful on March 25, 2026, formalizing the council-approved measure.
Farmers’ markets already function as significant and essential economic infrastructure in Ontario. On its About Farmers’ Markets Ontario page, Farmers’ Markets Ontario (FMO) says markets now act as key retail hubs that connect farmers to shoppers through direct sales, and estimates Ontario farmers’ market sales at about $800 million annually with an economic impact above $2.5 billion. On its Community Benefits page, FMO says up to 70% of market-goers also visit neighbouring businesses, and that some market-based enterprises grow into storefront businesses of their own. The 2023 BC Farmers’ Market Economic Impact Study, completed by the BC Association of Farmers’ Markets with the University of Northern British Columbia, reached similar conclusions, describing farmers’ markets as integral low-barrier direct-sales channels and estimating $118.5 million in spending at neighbouring businesses. That is why the Cloverbelt Country Farmers' Market question was always larger than event placement. A downtown Farmers' Market is part of the essential commercial infrastructure of local food.
Farmers’ Markets are the First Rung on the Commercialization Ladder
In Northwestern Ontario, the first rung is regulatory as well as economic. The Northwestern Health Unit (NWHU)’s public FAQ, FAQ for Farmers’ Market Food Vendors, explains that a farmers’ market is exempt from Ontario Regulation 493/17 (Food Premises) when more than 51% of vendors are farmers selling their own farm products. At an exempt market, home-prepared food items can be sold subject to a public-health hazard assessment, while certain categories such as meat, milk, and eggs still have to come from inspected facilities. At a non-exempt market, by contrast, all food vendors must meet the regulation, use an inspected and approved kitchen, obtain permits, and, if they cannot find an approved space, they cannot sell. That distinction is not a technicality. It is one of the few places in the food economy where early-stage farmers and food processors can enter the market before they can afford to operate like a conventional commercial plant.
That is why the distinction between a true farmers’ market and a more general market matters so much. The issue is preserving a producer-led entry point that keeps the first rung intact. In food, unlike many other sectors, regulation arrives early, compliance is expensive, and mistakes can shut down market access or the business altogether. A genuine farmers’ market is therefore not just a place to sell. It is a market-access bridge.
The First Rung is Necessary, But Not Sufficient
The need for that bridge is visible in the national data. Statistics Canada reported in 2023 that 25,917 Canadian farms sold directly to consumers (DTC) in 2020, up from 24,510 in 2015. Three in five of those direct-selling farms used on-site stands or farm-gate sales, half delivered directly to customers, about one in six sold at farmers’ markets, and nearly 30% derived all operating revenue from direct sales. The Ontario Federation of Agriculture’s (OFAs) 2025 final report, Cultivating Local: Seizing Opportunities to Grow Ontario’s Local Agri-Products Sector, found that producers see increased income potential and direct connection to consumers as the top benefits of local selling, but it also found that advertising and marketing, along with managing costs and profitability, are the top challenges. Notably for this discussion, OFA reported that farmers in Northern Ontario show high interest in direct-to-consumer selling, and that 61% of respondents did not have an online presence for their farms. In Northwestern Ontario's Kenora District, the lack of urban centres in such a large region makes farm-gate sales unviable. The market is thus essential, but the market alone does not solve commercialization and scaling, due to low population centres.
Academic literature helps explain why. In the peer-reviewed paper Does direct farm marketing fulfill its promises? Analyzing job satisfaction among direct-market farmers in Canada, Stevens Azima and Patrick Mundler surveyed 613 direct-market farmers across Canada and found that respondents generated an average of 80% of total farm revenues from direct marketing. They also found that direct-market farms were typically managed by one or two operators, that hired labour and volunteers were common, and that nearly one-fifth of respondents reported negative earnings. The authors conclude that direct-market farmers often find the work meaningful, but still face persistent challenges including stress, excessive workloads, and competition. A University of Waterloo thesis, A Case Study in the Development of a Sustainable Farming Livelihood for Direct-Marketing Farmers in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, adds a blunt operational lesson: scaling up is not a great possibility for direct-marketing farmers, so expenses have to be kept to a minimum. This is why strong producers can still remain commercially fragile when the farmers’ market is their only serious channel.
Farmers’ Markets Ontario’s Farmers’ Benefits page says 60% of farmers who sell at farmers’ markets sell at multiple markets, and that those market revenues average 33% of their total farm revenues. In Southern Ontario, that can mean several markets within manageable driving distance. In Kenora District, the arithmetic is harsher. Statistics Canada’s 2021 Focus on Geography profile for Kenora puts the district’s land area at 395,432.07 square kilometres, with a population density of 0.2 people per square kilometre. In a geography that large, “multiple markets” can mean long drives, fuel costs, time away from production, and repeated setup labour for businesses that often have only one or two operators. This is where a first rung can keep a business alive, but still fail to let it scale.
Northwestern Ontario has a Missing Middle-Ground
The structural problem is what happens after the first rung. In a 2025 Northwestern Ontario Innovation Centre (NOIC) article, Navigating Barriers: How Food Manufacturers Can Scale in Northwestern Ontario, NOIC identifies five recurring barriers: regulatory hurdles, infrastructure gaps, geographic and logistical constraints, market access and visibility, and capital and cash flow. The article is especially direct about the next-stage retail challenge: breaking into grocery chains, food service channels, or export markets requires consistent production, professional branding, and established distribution relationships that many early-stage businesses do not yet have. For rural and Indigenous entrepreneurs, it adds, the financing burden is even harder. That description maps closely onto what we see across Northwestern Ontario.
Broader Ontario and Northern food-system research points to the same missing middle-ground. The literature scan Northern Ontario Food Systems: A Scan of Infrastructure and Transportation, prepared for Local Food and Farm Co-ops (now dissolved) and the FLEdGE research program, found that higher volumes of product move through wholesale while lower volumes move through farmers’ markets, that grocery stores have left little room for local product because of their affiliation with major chains, and that Northern Ontario needs identifiable wholesalers, retailers, food co-ops, food hubs, and online distribution hubs. The University of Guelph case study Regional Food Hub Pilot Project makes the same point differently: the mainstream distribution model is geared to large-scale operations, and the infrastructure linking small and medium-sized producers to larger buyers is lacking. The Royal Society of Canada commentary Canada’s local food system faces major roadblocks without urgent policy changes and Sustain Ontario’s 2025 policy paper Buy Local Food: Policy Recommendations both argue that small and medium-sized producers need better retail opportunities, better processing and distribution infrastructure, and more regional food hubs. The research is clear: farmers’ markets matter, but regions also need an intermediate commercial bridge.
The federal Competition Bureau has now put similar language into national policy terms. In its 2026 report A recipe for competition: How shared kitchens and food hubs can strengthen competition and small business growth in Canada’s food sector, the Bureau says shared kitchens and food hubs lower entry thresholds, reduce capital and compliance costs, accelerate launch timelines, and improve compliance for small and medium-sized enterprises. It also introduces a particularly useful concept: the shared facility as a compliance platform. In the Bureau’s analysis, a professionally managed shared facility lets multiple businesses operate inside an environment that already meets core regulatory standards, rather than forcing each one to build and certify everything alone. That is how AgriTech North has planned and developed itself from its inception as the "second rung."
AgriTech North’s Second Rung is the Middle-Ground
This is the void that AgriTech North has been trying to fill. On its homepage, AgriTech North describes itself as a local grocery store with year-round retail hours, and lists weekly delivery to your door to Dryden, Kenora, and Sioux Lookout. Its grocery collection shows a mixed shelf that includes AgriTech North’s own products alongside goods from other vendors. In a 2023 FedNor news release, Government of Canada invests $177,416 to boost agriculture production and establish a food hub in Dryden, the federal government described complementary Dryden food-hub work in almost identical terms, saying value-chain coordinators would help producers overcome challenges related to marketing, storage, packaging, logistics, and distribution. Those are exactly the tasks that sit between the first rung and broader market access.
For many of the producers we work with, that second rung has meant something simple but transformative: a regularly staffed retail shelf and an online storefront that can sell their goods on days when they are not physically present. Because AgriTech North operates year-round with staff on-site, we also absorb coordination and merchandising labour that one- or two-person direct-market businesses often cannot absorb on their own. In practice, that includes the unglamorous commercial tasks that stall early-stage food businesses, such as packaging, merchandising, customer education, inventory handling, local delivery, and the gradual tightening of label and documentation regulations. A market table can prove there is demand. A second-rung shelf can turn that proof into repeatable and growing commerce that enables scaling.
The jump from market vendor to mainstream buyer is unusually steep in food. National Sanitation Foundation's (NSFs) CanadaGAP page describes CanadaGAP as a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) based food safety program that helps growers gain access to Canadian retailers and food processors, and notes that several large Canadian retailers and food processors require CanadaGAP certification. For reference, GAP in CanadaGAP stands for "Good Agricultural Practices." NSF Canada Agricultural Certification Company makes the buyer side even plainer on its CanadaGAP page, naming big box retailers among buyers requiring certification. At the same time, Farmers’ Markets Ontario (FMO) says markets are ideal for new and small-scale producers who cannot meet supermarket order minimums. Not every grocer uses identical requirements, but the public certification landscape makes the broader point unmistakable: the leap from a farmers’ market to formal retail is very large, and it arrives very early. That is an unavoidable commercialization cliff.
The logistics model of large buyers creates a second barrier. The University of Guelph’s Regional Food Hub Pilot Project case study found that many food service buyers, large and small, prefer to purchase through a single supplier because one-stop shopping simplifies ordering, receiving, and payment, and the same report found that the current system creates difficulties for small producers trying to access those channels. In Northwestern Ontario, those pressures are intensified by geography. NOIC says the region’s vast distances and sparse transportation infrastructure erode margins, while the Northern Ontario food-systems scan says conventional delivery is more expensive, shared delivery is less convenient, and grocery chains have left little room for local product. That is why a local second-rung retailer and distributor can change the economics even before a producer is big enough for a formal chain listing.
From the Second Rung to Broader Markets
The second rung is not the destination. It is the bridge to a third rung. AgriTech North has been working toward PrimusGFS Certification (GFS stands for Global Food Standard) for more than two years because the long-term goal is not simply to stock a local shelf, but to create a path from farmers’ market, to managed local retail, to provincial, national, and international buyers. Externally, NSF describes PrimusGFS as a Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) recognized agricultural certification used across North American and Latin American markets for growers, packers, processors, and distributors, while Azzule Systems’ PrimusGFS page describes it as an internationally recognized scheme covering GAP, Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), food safety management, indoor agriculture, storage and distribution, and HACCP-related modules. In other words, it is the kind of platform that can turn local commercialization into broader market eligibility.
That broader eligibility matters for financing as well. NOIC’s Next Level program page says applicants must be operating full time with at least one full-time employee and must have sales outside Northwestern Ontario, or be able to demonstrate the potential to expand sales outside the region within the context of the program. That is a reasonable scale-up criterion, but it also illustrates why food producers need an intermediate rung. A producer whose business model still depends almost entirely on sporadic market days generally has difficulty proving that kind of market reach. A second-rung channel helps create the sales history, packaging discipline, compliance readiness, and distribution habits needed to satisfy programs like this. Then by using the resulting equipment and certifications the small business becomes more competitive while learning the process as it is being implemented, ultimately gaining independent capacity along the way. Some producers who previously only retailed at markets then progressed to being a featured local producer at AgriTech North, and are now on big-box grocery store shelves, illustrating the success of the model.
What Regional Food Security Requires
None of this is merely a business-development story. It is a food security story. In Northern Ontario Farm Innovation Alliance's (NOFIAs) 2024 resource, Better Co-Ordination Key to Strengthening Northern Ontario’s Food Supply Chain, the organization says local food procurement in Northern Ontario is challenged by distance and low population density, and argues that the region needs a connector or champion who can bring people and businesses together, simplify procurement, and coordinate distribution. FedNor’s 2023 Dryden food-hub release says that improving distribution efficiency will help address food insecurity in rural and Indigenous communities across the region. AgriTech North’s own public site links its grocery and year-round growing work to reducing produce costs and improving year-round availability. For us, the policy logic is straightforward: regional food security improves when local producers can stay in business, reach more customers, and scale without having to leave the region to do it.
That is why supporting the Cloverbelt Country Farmers’ Market’s return to downtown Dryden and building AgriTech North’s second rung are not separate projects. They are the first two steps of the same ladder. The market keeps the first rung alive: low-barrier entry, direct sales, local visibility, and community trust. The second rung gives producers a way to keep selling after market day ends, to reduce time lost to travel, and to build toward the higher-compliance, larger-volume markets that remain out of reach for many start-ups. If Northwestern Ontario wants more locally produced food on more local tables, it cannot assume the farmers’ market alone will do all the work. It has to keep the first rung strong, and it has to build the second.
