Taste of Abby Fall Food Festival

Robyn Bessenger Photography

The Taste of Abby Fall Food Festival is nine-day destination food festival designed to bring awareness to the growing food and farm culture in Abbotsford, celebrating the handmade and homegrown products and producers that call Abbotsford home. Through producing and promoting unique events, tasting menus, and limited-edition items, and by encouraging our local arts scene, we provided opportunities for people to learn more about our producers, growers and food & beverage makers. We wanted to create a sense of urgency for residents and visitors to try what Abbotsford has to offer while developing a viable, long-term food festival that places Abbotsford (and the Fraser Valley) at the heart of culinary culture in BC.

The festival kicked off with two key events - an opening Night Market and an immersive media long table hosted in the middle of an apple orchard.

The night market was well attended by locals, visitors, and dignitaries alike! Everyone enjoyed local foods, beverages and live art performances in one of the city's favourite parks. And as this was operated as a not-for-profit event, 100% of sales were retained by vendors and there was no fee for businesses to participate - unheard of at most markets/vendor events.

The media event was attended by six food writers from Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley, they mingled and ate with the farmers who provided ingredients for the evening. The food was prepared by award-winning chef Jeff Massey and his team from Restaurant 62. Local beer and wine were featured including a beer collaboration between two local breweries. A few specific outcomes from the media dinner were food features in the Vancouver Sun and in Edibles Magazine, as well as new connections between some of the farmers and food makers who were there.

Throughout the rest of the week, Taste of Abby featured several other initiatives supporting the goals of the week-long event including Downtown Abbotsford Wine & Art Walk, branded Taste of Abby Point-of -Sale shelving temporarily installed in 10 local shops, a film screening of the documentary Rails, Jails & Trolleys (in collaboration with the South Asian Studies Institute) which covered the history of the Indian Farmers Protest and its impact on Canadian farmers, featured restaurant menu items made with local ingredients, a picnic pack and parks feature, Abbotsford Food and Farm awards in collaboration with the Chamber of Commerce to celebrate and acknowledge the producers and makers doing great things in Abbotsford, and a raffle featuring an Indigenous themed picnic on the banks of the Sumas River. Raffle proceeds went to support culinary training for Indigenous students in the Sto:lo Aboriginal Skills & Training catchment area.

Through these initiatives and touch points we were able to showcase the vibrant food, craft, art and culinary experience that Abbotsford has to offer. In the weeks that followed Taste of Abby, you could begin to see the positive ripple effects. One example that illustrates the impact - the owner of BIPOC Market, which only opened two weeks prior to the Taste of Abby Night Market, told us many of her regular customers that shop there today found out about their store through TOA! She (and other partners) are already reaching out to get involved again this year.

By highlighting businesses like BIPOC Market and encouraging local travel, tourism promotion for the event helped extend their reach and markets so they can focus more on doing what they do best (which is lot, especially when you're a new business owner).

Taste of Abby Fall Food Festival is designed to engage locals and visitors with the growing culinary culture and help stimulate interest and growth in the agriculture and F&B industries. Prior to COVID-19, communities like Abbotsford were already seeing an increasing demand in culinary and agritourism experiences, and a desire for more wide-open spaces. The pandemic heightened everyone's awareness of health and safety, as well as helped put a focus on community and the need to support local. We feel there will be even stronger demand for local food and farming post-Covid, and that people will continue looking for opportunities to come together as a community to engage, celebrate and support local.

In 2022, Taste of Abby was envisioned to be the first annual destination food festival of its kind in the area. It is anticipated that this event will also foster new tourism endeavors with the potential to expand across neighbouring areas and create more opportunities for local First Nations to engage locals and visitors in their food cultures.