We are at the Marcel Goguen Farm in Cocagne at 11 am to meet Bernadette for a final time before press. Bernadette is not here. Marcel is working in the barn at the very top and must climb down two or three ladders to get to us. We haven’t met him before and we’re not sure if he’s annoyed at us for interrupting his work but it’s soon apparent that it’s important to him that he find out if she’s coming.
Apparently she is across the river at a meeting of Terroir Foods and Agrimarketing (TFA), a year old La Récolte de Chez Nous project Bernadette is involved in. The meeting has gone over and despite several calls to her cell, Marcel just gets some clicking on the phone and then it cuts out. He’s determined to get hold of her. We don’t want to take him away from his farm work but he insists he’s going over to get her and tells us he has to change vehicles anyway since she has the pickup.
Finally, we convince him it’s not a problem and that we’ll go for lunch and she can call us when she gets back.
Meanwhile their daughter pulls into the dooryard and she, too, seems anxious to assure us if we had an appointment for eleven then Bernadette must be on her way. Right then we see a pickup pulling off the road into the driveway at the bottom of the hill. Everybody seems relieved. When Bernadette arrives she apologizes for being late more than makes us comfortable because we know she also has lots of work to do.
As she leads us to the house she mentions off hand that “the kitchen is a mess” (which it turns out really is a mess) but there is none of the concern like there was about being late for our meeting and during the interview we get a sense of her priorities and why everyone around her knew making our meeting was important to her. Near the top of the list is being reliable. “If I say I am going to do something, then I do it.” Her not being there to meet us really was a big deal to her.
A few endeavors
What we wanted to get from this last meeting was a clear idea of all the things she was involved in. We had casually asked Marcel while we were waiting for Bernadette, but apparently it was a perplexing question for him. We may as well have asked How many leaves are in the orchard right now?
Even after an hour of interviewing her, we were still not sure of the extent of her involvement in the community – we suspect she wasn’t either – but we had covered the big ones.
The Cocagne Gang
There was her ten years at the 15 year-old Groupe de développement durable du Pays de Cocagne (GDDPC) — an intimidatingly long Francophone name destined to be shortened to something silly by Anglophones, like TheCocagne Gang. It’s an umbrella group for many past and ongoing projects and programs concerned with the Cocagne River Watershed.
One project intriguing to her is the green funeral project which, if she has her way, has her destined to be buried in cardboard box, sans toxic chemicals, and sans anything else that can’t be composted back to nature as quickly as possible. “We have a meeting coming up and have 30 people interested in coming,” she says.
Then there is the Transition Cocagne program. “Cocagne is the first official Francophone one in the country,” she says, obviously proud of the how forward thinking her community is. The Transition Town concept came out of initiatives in the U.K. Basically, it is about increasing self-sufficiency for when the oil gives out, when the Internent collapses, and when the four New Brunswick seasons become one long summer. But it’s really about a lack of complacency. They try to answer questions like: How would we feed our community?
The food hub
But the really big project right now is the Terroir Foods and Agrimarketing or the TFA food hub set up by the farm cooperative La Récolte de Chez Nous. The food hub’s goal is for local farmers to supply food to all the schools in the Francophone Sud and possibly Anglophone East districts. They would also like to supply any other organization or business that wants good local food.
This project is vital to the co-op as an entity and to the ideals of the food movement generally, namely because it means good food for children and supporting local farming and all the good things that come out of that. “It has the potential to be a key player,” she says. “It is the most important thing I’m working on now because it’s going to create jobs. It’s going to create awareness about local food. I can market my stuff and my neighbour’s stuff through CSAs through the TFA. It’s a way to promote and keep our lands in production and interest young people into farming.”
This project is getting a lot of her energy because it matters. In fact, she gave up her board involvement in La Récolte to be on the food hub board. If it succeeds then it means work for local farmers, possibly more farmers coming into the system and saving yet more farmland.
It was a nearby farm being turned into a gravel pit that got her going many years ago. “All of that (topsoil) pulled out and sent into town to grow lawns, topsoil being stripped from land that could produce food,” she says, which to her is a travesty that should move anyone to action. “I’ve been worried about this stuff way, way, way before it was the style.”
A Gallery of Photos of Bernadette Goguen's World
The farm has been in the Goguen family for seven generations. She married into the family and says she feels she has been privileged to have been able to help care for it.
When I first met him at the on Elmwood Drive in Moncton, Aaron Shantz couldn’t shake hands because he had this massive gash from some accident with metal at his house. It looked painful and he made it sound like he had been incredibly stupid and clumsy.
The other thing I remember about that first interview is that he said his wife was probably better connected to food security skills than he was because he was just a forestry guy, his original career being in GIS for big corporations – the ‘devil’, as he calls them – helping them to cut corners around environmental policy. “It made me sick.”
Homesteaders
But this is who Aaron is now. He and Shelley bought an abandoned farm and they’ve turned it into a homestead. In the photos you can see why Our Food SENB might think him suited to the job of coordinating food actions.
Aaron and Shelley have committed to the idea of a way of life they believe more people must turn to if we’re to survive on this planet. “I’m an idealist,” he says and the ideal is, “can someone start from scratch with no financial help from anyone else and actually provide for themselves and live with a low environmental footprint?”
The original plan was for Aaron to work some minimum wage job while Shelley grew their food. Aaron got jobs like welding plastic tanks for fire trucks, picking corn, and milking goats. “We were going to live agricultural bliss,” Aaron said, but “surviving in Kent County has been a real journey.” And then kids started happening. “We never factored having a kid.” Or two.
“I know a lot of people have the ideal (of food security and a light environmental footprint) but it seems like a really hard thing and that all the things that are needed don’t exist yet and that our generation has to learn those things. Maybe in a couple of generations we’ll have it figured out.” Aaron Shantz, Coordinator of Our Food Southeast New Brunswick.
Last spring when we heard the rumours of a farmers market on wheels we thought, It’s about time. And obviously so did a lot of other people because The Farmers Truck’s Facebook Page had 4,000 likes before the summer was even out. So popular and timely was the mobile market that people were volunteering to work on it – not a problem most businesses have.
Season 2 promises to be even better with a second, improved truck, an online store complete with home delivery, more products and even, potentially, a performing carrot.
Frederic Laforge and Mathieu Reyjal are the entrepreneurs behind this local business and what we like about them is the solid farming roots they have. Frederic’s father has been a farmer most of his life and Mathieu became a farmer out of university. The idea for The Farmers Truck came out of a professional connection when Frederic was helping Mathieu develop his farm’s logo and brand.
Frederic says the idea came when he was admiring the little country store Mathieu had made at his farm. “But,” he told Mathieu, “it really sucks that I would have to drive out to Cap Pelé. It’d be awesome if it could be mobile.” The discussion started from there.
It took a year of researching, designing, branding, planning and a $25,000 investment to roll out the first truck. Last summer they worked the truck themselves for a month and then hired a crew.
The goal of the truck is an authentic farmers market experience. “To have a little bit of everything,” says Frederic, “so when you get there you can actually get your milk, your cheese, your meat, your vegetables and bread and you go home and have a nice meal. You wouldn’t have to go anywhere else.”
Respect for local farmer
Respect for local farmers is at the heart of their business model. “Back in the day when you were a farmer you were a pillar of the community and now it’s almost like you get looked down on,” Frederic says. “And the retailer is the one who owns the market, dictates what they want to pay for stuff. The one they’re squeezing out is the farmer.”
By contrast, The Farmers Truck sources those farmers as directly as possible and their sources are never more than 160 km (as the crow flies).
Timing is right
The timing of The Farmers Truck business is right not only for consumers, but for local farmers, too. “There have been a lot of changes in food in the Maritimes,” Mathieu says as we’re driving back to their warehouse for more produce for the next rush. It’s the first day of the new season.
For example, Sobeys bought Co-op, he says, and all the contracts for medium-sized farmers got washed away. “All of a sudden all those medium-sized farms are competing with small farmers.”
Back at the warehouse I get the tour. The warehouse is huge and he shows me where their portion is, but there are no walls separating the other spaces. Everything is just getting started at this new location just a couple of minutes from where the truck was on St. George and Cameron. There is a walk-in cooler with a couple of shelving units and there is a space back in the main area where he has a foldout table for a desk.
This is Mathieu’s domain. “Fred is the marketing expert and I’m in charge of logistics,” he says. Mathieu is the one who connects with farmers, a job he obviously relishes, being a farmer himself. However, he has taken the year off farming to put himself completely into The Farmers Truck business.
While he is getting supplies to restock the truck he explains how none of the food will be wasted. If there is anything that doesn’t get bought and won’t keep, the staff can take it or it will go to the new Community Food Centre in Moncton.
New generation of entrepreneurs
These two guys are the new generation of entrepreneurs. They are in it for the money, for sure, and they use all the technology and social media they can; but they believe they must also be doing good for their community. Frederic says they intend to be a B Corporation business whose members are socially responsible. But again, they are a business first.
He says there have been many mobile markets, but most are charities that target food deserts, that is, areas that don’t have access to good grocery stores. While he applauds the idea, he believes that for the business to be sustainable, it must be run as a business.
Franchise opportunities
However, Frederic says, “We don’t want to be in the operating of the truck. Our goal is to franchise.” “We are a retail solution company,” Mathieu says. “The idea is that we are making a product which is a truck and we will make a brand.” Their big goal is that you will be able to buy from a Farmers Truck anywhere across North America.
The core of that franchise, though, will be local sourcing, that is, no industrial food hubs. “Our mission is buy local, sell local. It’s nonnegotiable and we’ll enforce that on our franchisees,” Frederic says. “
Frederic says, “The long term plan is to, say, have a little co-op of farmers, five or six farmers, and all together they have one truck that they supply and basically they make one-hundred percent of the profit.”
But, he says, “Some of the franchisees won’t be farmers. Maybe they will be young kids who believe in the idea. You can make a decent living having one of these trucks, and encourage your local economy.”
And in the off season, there will be an online store with home delivery to keep franchise owners going when it’s too cold to wait at a truck on the corner.
For now, though, there is only the Moncton operation and they’re still using the first truck they started as a bootstrap operation. But on July 1 the new improved truck should be ready and it will have, among other things, the ability to sell meat.
Tracking them down
Proof of their natural popularity is they barely have to advertise. Most of their marketing is done through their Facebook page where you can track down their location on any given day.
They believe people love that farmers market experience, of buying local and getting good food, and that they will make it part of their grocery buying routine if the The Farmers Truck route is consistent.
Jun 6 2016
Bernadette Goguen’s flock of causes
We are at the Marcel Goguen Farm in Cocagne at 11 am to meet Bernadette for a final time before press. Bernadette is not here. Marcel is working in the barn at the very top and must climb down two or three ladders to get to us. We haven’t met him before and we’re not sure if he’s annoyed at us for interrupting his work but it’s soon apparent that it’s important to him that he find out if she’s coming.
Apparently she is across the river at a meeting of Terroir Foods and Agrimarketing (TFA), a year old La Récolte de Chez Nous project Bernadette is involved in. The meeting has gone over and despite several calls to her cell, Marcel just gets some clicking on the phone and then it cuts out. He’s determined to get hold of her. We don’t want to take him away from his farm work but he insists he’s going over to get her and tells us he has to change vehicles anyway since she has the pickup.
Finally, we convince him it’s not a problem and that we’ll go for lunch and she can call us when she gets back.
Meanwhile their daughter pulls into the dooryard and she, too, seems anxious to assure us if we had an appointment for eleven then Bernadette must be on her way. Right then we see a pickup pulling off the road into the driveway at the bottom of the hill. Everybody seems relieved. When Bernadette arrives she apologizes for being late more than makes us comfortable because we know she also has lots of work to do.
As she leads us to the house she mentions off hand that “the kitchen is a mess” (which it turns out really is a mess) but there is none of the concern like there was about being late for our meeting and during the interview we get a sense of her priorities and why everyone around her knew making our meeting was important to her. Near the top of the list is being reliable. “If I say I am going to do something, then I do it.” Her not being there to meet us really was a big deal to her.
A few endeavors
What we wanted to get from this last meeting was a clear idea of all the things she was involved in. We had casually asked Marcel while we were waiting for Bernadette, but apparently it was a perplexing question for him. We may as well have asked How many leaves are in the orchard right now?
Even after an hour of interviewing her, we were still not sure of the extent of her involvement in the community – we suspect she wasn’t either – but we had covered the big ones.
The Cocagne Gang
There was her ten years at the 15 year-old Groupe de développement durable du Pays de Cocagne (GDDPC) — an intimidatingly long Francophone name destined to be shortened to something silly by Anglophones, like The Cocagne Gang. It’s an umbrella group for many past and ongoing projects and programs concerned with the Cocagne River Watershed.
One project intriguing to her is the green funeral project which, if she has her way, has her destined to be buried in cardboard box, sans toxic chemicals, and sans anything else that can’t be composted back to nature as quickly as possible. “We have a meeting coming up and have 30 people interested in coming,” she says.
Then there is the Transition Cocagne program. “Cocagne is the first official Francophone one in the country,” she says, obviously proud of the how forward thinking her community is. The Transition Town concept came out of initiatives in the U.K. Basically, it is about increasing self-sufficiency for when the oil gives out, when the Internent collapses, and when the four New Brunswick seasons become one long summer. But it’s really about a lack of complacency. They try to answer questions like: How would we feed our community?
The food hub
But the really big project right now is the Terroir Foods and Agrimarketing or the TFA food hub set up by the farm cooperative La Récolte de Chez Nous. The food hub’s goal is for local farmers to supply food to all the schools in the Francophone Sud and possibly Anglophone East districts. They would also like to supply any other organization or business that wants good local food.
This project is vital to the co-op as an entity and to the ideals of the food movement generally, namely because it means good food for children and supporting local farming and all the good things that come out of that. “It has the potential to be a key player,” she says. “It is the most important thing I’m working on now because it’s going to create jobs. It’s going to create awareness about local food. I can market my stuff and my neighbour’s stuff through CSAs through the TFA. It’s a way to promote and keep our lands in production and interest young people into farming.”
This project is getting a lot of her energy because it matters. In fact, she gave up her board involvement in La Récolte to be on the food hub board. If it succeeds then it means work for local farmers, possibly more farmers coming into the system and saving yet more farmland.
It was a nearby farm being turned into a gravel pit that got her going many years ago. “All of that (topsoil) pulled out and sent into town to grow lawns, topsoil being stripped from land that could produce food,” she says, which to her is a travesty that should move anyone to action. “I’ve been worried about this stuff way, way, way before it was the style.”
A Gallery of Photos of Bernadette Goguen's World
By Archie Nadon • farming, First Issue, food security, people • Tags: Acadie, farming, food security, Southeast New Brunswick