\u201cIf the market hadn\u2019t opened up to day-of sales, if it had kept to online ordering, online payment and pick-up I would have stayed a little bit longer,\u201d says Samuels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI found it\u2019s hard to control people especially, if you\u2019re just telling everyone you\u2019re going to fine them. Fines aren\u2019t the best methods of control in my opinion. The managing of people is why we were feeling unsafe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the husband-and-wife team, this decision has meant innovating Jambican\u2019s business model to survive the pandemic and they have embraced the change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Stuff we didn\u2019t think we could do we\u2019re now being forced to do.<\/p>Colin Samuels, Jambican Studio Gardens<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m not a pandemic hater in the sense that it\u2019s forcing us to be bigger human beings. Stuff we didn\u2019t think we could do we\u2019re now being forced to do. It doesn\u2019t make it easy but it\u2019s taking us places we probably wouldn\u2019t willingly go,\u201d Samuels says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pre-pandemic, Jambican had two primary streams of income: selling produce at local farmer markets and running its community supported agriculture (CSA<\/a>) program, which is essentially a vegetable delivery service. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The program, which is an alternative socio-economic model of food distribution adopted by many local operations to connect directly to consumers, has helped supplement the loss of business from farmer markets during the pandemic because Jambican sold out of 2020 subscriptions<\/a> for its main harvest season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beyond its successful CSA program, Jambican has also reconfigured itself to accept orders for specific produce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNow we\u2019re harvesting for specific people, so we have a list for the people we\u2019re harvesting for tomorrow, who we\u2019re delivering to, and we\u2019ve got specific orders for specific stuff which actually isn\u2019t bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s different from how we did it before, but it\u2019s not bad. COVID-19 is encouraging me to find different ways of operating and I don\u2019t mind that, I do miss the talking from market but we\u2019ve got more customers than ever; we\u2019ve doubled it, at least, compared to last year,\u201d says Samuels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Samuels credits the onslaught of interest from the community to an increase in public consciousness about the risk of crowded supermarkets as people seek reliable, low-contact, or no-contact nutritious groceries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Apart from developing their relationships with customers, Samuels says that Jambican has also serendipitously been able to foster its partnership with Moo Shu Ice Cream, a local ice creamery that has previously used Jambican\u2019s produce for the production of its ice cream. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Since Sept. 19 Moo Shu Ice Cream<\/a> <\/a>has been stocking Jambican\u2019s produce at its location in the Glebe every weekend to help the organic farm safely access a larger local market during the quarantine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Liz Mok, Moo Shu\u2019s owner, introduced the idea of selling Jambican\u2019s vegetable produce from a small-batch ice cream store because Mok believes it is important to support local food producers during this crisis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s important to support local because it means I\u2019m getting the best ingredients, the best quality of product, and am financially supporting my community,\u201d Mok said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWith any obstruction, you meet there are ways around. It\u2019s not the end of the world. Sometimes, it feels like the end of the world, but there are a whole lot of really brilliant people doing excellent, wonderful work, there\u2019s a lot of innovation coming.\u201d<\/p>Colin Samuels, Jambican Studio Gardens<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Mok says Jambican is unique for the produce it grows. Unlike most suppliers, Jambican grows a variety of Asian greens due to Watanabe\u2019s desire to promote traditional Japanese food. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOftentimes people who are racialized are not able to eat local while eating the food that they find comforting from their own cuisine. In that way, the local food movement can be exclusionary to people who are of colour,\u201d Mok says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPart of my values is to eat local, so I either have to choose to eat whiter dishes if I want to eat local, or if I want to eat Chinese food I have to settle because there’s no real in-between option there. So I was really excited about the produce Colin and Kuniko were growing, I obviously found a lot of value in what they do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Mok, it is Moo Shu Ice Cream\u2019s intersection of Asian culinary and farm-to-table influences that inspired this COVID-19 partnership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI thought we are already in that intersection when it comes to ice cream. Why can we not be in that intersection when it comes to, you know, grocery and savoury foods as well,\u201d says Mok.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sarah Maria Carere purchases a majority of her groceries locally and has enjoyed the fruits of Jambican and Moo Shu\u2019s partnership. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As a consumer, Carere says she feels obligated to spend her money with purpose by supporting local vendors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTo me, supporting local farms and industries just makes more sense. The product normally is of much greater quality, because small-business owners tend to pour their entire heart into their products,\u201d Carere says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Back in her hometown of Guelph, Ont. Carere knows a lot of people who sell and frequent the Guelph Farmer’s Market, including her family. The market has influenced her value of local agriculture as Caere grew up knowing many of the vendors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you support your community it supports you back.<\/p>– Sarah Maria Carereho, customer<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf we spend our money within our own community, it will enhance our economy and help the people who are working hard to create good products, not just to become wealthy,\u201d Carere says. \u201cWe’ll also get products that are better quality, better tasting, and ethically sourced. When you support your community it supports you back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Samuels, these changes are hopefully just the beginning of a new chapter for Jambican and other local growers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWith any obstruction, you meet there are ways around. It\u2019s not the end of the world. Sometimes, it feels like the end of the world, but there are a whole lot of really brilliant people doing excellent, wonderful work, there\u2019s a lot of innovation coming.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When markets don’t feel safe anymore Local farmers, Colin Samuels and Kumiko Watanabe, have been working hard to develop alternative pandemic revenue streams to cope with the coronavirus pandemic as they avoid Ottawa farmer markets. In June, the owners of … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":323,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"Colin Samuels harvesting fall produce at Jambican Studio Gardens in Manotick in October. [Photo courtesy of Kyoko Tsunetomi]","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,61,36,60],"class_list":["post-310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-covid-19","tag-csa","tag-famers-markets","tag-farmers","even"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/pivot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/pivot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/pivot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/pivot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/pivot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/pivot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":786,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/pivot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions\/786"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/pivot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/pivot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/pivot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/pivot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Customizing orders<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/pivot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screen-Shot-2020-11-26-at-6.07.34-PM.png\")
Lifting each other up<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/pivot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screen-Shot-2020-11-26-at-6.09.29-PM.png\")
Supporting local<\/h3>\n\n\n\n