Flavour Trader, one of Yellowknife’s favourite companies dedicated to the celebration of food and dining experiences, is closing.
Chef and owner Etienne Croteau posted the announcement after reaching his fifth year of running the company.
“It is with sad feelings that we have informed you that FLAVOUR TRADER is closing definitely in Yellowknife, NWT,” he said. “With a lot of thinking and trying to grow veggies commercially for three years, I was not able to find land.”
He added that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought difficulty to the catering and cooking class aspects of his operation given some of the public health restrictions.
Croteau said in an interview last Friday that although there were a number of factors that went into his decision, the main frustration was being unable to purchase or lease land from the City of Yellowknife to grow food.
Many of his sentiments were heard in March as he gave his perspective leading up to the City of Yellowknife’s passing of its agriculture strategy.
At that time he stressed the difficulty of moving his commercial kitchen forward due to the lack of access to land, but also pointed out that costs of operations — which are addressed in southern jurisdictions with tax reductions for agriculture and water subsidies — don’t exist in the North.
He said that it isn’t so much that there hasn’t been government assistance but “a lack of a clear path to follow.”
“Everywhere in Canada, agriculture gets help from government to help make it into a sector and to help make it affordable,” he said. “Yellowknife, Northwest Territories has to understand that a system of help has to be there. It absolutely has to be there.
“If there is not a synergy of people talking for real to make it happen at city hall then it won’t happen.”
Specifically Croteau said he would like to see a city committee made up of representatives from the GNWT Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, CanN0r and Ecology North to help provide sustained direction for the industry.
It has been five years since the company opened on May 6, 2016 at the Breakaway Fitness building with a spice wall, cooking classes and catering services.
Since that time, residents saw how dynamic Croteau’s company was as he became a prime location to visit, offered a popular site at the Yellowknife Farmers’ Market and took part in other festivals and events, including for Yellowknife’s francophone scene.
In 2017 he served Governor General of Canada Julie Payette and was celebrated in an October 2018 edition of the Globe and Mail as being being a culinary star representing the Northwest Territories for ‘Canada’s Kitchen.’
In November 2018 he took on a contract to run the Museum Cafe at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre and although that stint ended roughly two years later with challenges around the COVID-19 pandemic, he transitioned his operation into a commercial kitchen on Kam Lake.
Not without difficulty, he was able to get territorial and federal funding support to start that phase of the operation with the intent of expanding into local food production to supply his restaurant.
He said if the city was able to form a committee of devoted participants, he believes an agriculture sector that could be off the ground in two to three years.
The problem is he is good to grow now.
“I’m ready now and so I’m going back to Quebec to put my hand in soil,” he said. Aiming for a June 1 start date, the Flavour Trader name will carry on from his home base in Victoriaville, PQ.
Producer responses
Other producers in town said they were disappointed to see Croteau go as he there are but a few voices championing the growth of the industry.
“We are sad to see Etienne go,” said Kyle Thomas, co-owner of the Bush Order Provisions, who had been speaking to the City’s agriculture strategy with Croteau in recent city meetings.
“Every voice in the industry is needed. He pushed the local culinary scene quite a bit throughout all his ventures over the years and brought more attention to how local food production should be supported. We were very excited to have him and other food processing businesses (fish and bottling) all located so closely in the Kam Lake area. We could/can see a budding food production sector in Yellowknife starting to form.”
France Benoit, another leading voice and commercial food grower pushing for the industry’s growth said that losing a player like Croteau is a letdown.
“It is a setback whenever somebody has a business idea (and) somebody wanting to be active in the agriculture and food production sector is not able to get his/or business going or must shut down,” she said. “We all lose. Sadly, he will not grow food in Yellowknife for Yellowknifers. Our loss is somebody else’s win.
“It is proof that challenges exist to start any business. In this case, he was facing challenges that could not be overcome in the time frame needed for him to get his business going.”