4.5 Food Processing
Food Processing
With excess produce, you can make value-added products with them! This could be drying, canning, or freezing. Some of these products might include:
- Dried herb bunches
Salsa at Thistle Farm - Garlic powder
- Hot pepper flakes
- Hot sauce
- Pickles
- Salsa
- Canned tomatoes
- Pickled beets
Remember that shipping is very expensive for canned goods, so direct sales to customers work best.
Many of these products require preparation in a commercial kitchen, or might be easier than your home kitchen. There are several local food hubs or commercial kitchens to make these value-added products in, for example at the Kweselkten Trailer (CFDC of CIFN), The Stir (Kamloops) or YeKm Food Hub (Lytton).
Food Safety
For any product that is processed (e.g. not sold whole and uncut), you will need to complete a food safety plan.
Here are examples of Food Safety Plans. There is also a workbook that you can work through to develop your food safety plan. After developing your plan with the workbook, you can use this template to write your plan. After your plan is complete, you will need to submit it to Interior Health, or your local health authority if you are outside of Interior Health’s region.
There are some training videos that provide a bit of an overview as well!
Further Reading
- Interior Health: Food Safety
- Interior Health: Food Premises
- CanadaGAP information – You need to need to CanadaGAP-certified to sell at large retail chains
- Small Scale Food Processor Association
- Local commercial kitchens:
- Kwelsetken Kitchen Trailer (CIFN of CFDC)
- The Stir (Kamloops)
- YeKm Food Hub (Lytton)
