One renews the offer of vegetable proteins, the other focuses on waste; two young companies from Bas-Saint-Laurent are betting that the future lies in unexplored or rejected foods, and especially in a food project that makes sense.
Pierre-Olivier Canuel never thought he would one day have his own tempeh factory. This father of five children, who worked for a long time in the world of beer as a brewer, naturally dabbled in the possibilities around fermentations and moulds. “At one point, I stuck on the tempeh! I try to eat veggie as much as possible and the offer is not that diverse. The tempeh came to bring tripant in the diet, something funky. »
He draws a parallel with sausage, another food covered in mold and yet much more popular, or cheeses, which have become exceptional products in Quebec thanks to several years of energy and research. “We take a simple product, milk, and transform it into something complex and very different. It turned me on; there was a way to take the legume to the next level with the tempeh. »
humility
One thing leading to another, his many experiments have become the very essence of his own job. Père Canuel’s fermentation plant currently produces six kinds of tempeh, including a ready-to-cook with beluga lentils and cow parsnip, a wild plant whose seeds taste like curry. Its offer is enhanced by miso of yellow peas, shio koji — a sauce made from a mold that is also found in soy sauce — and several lactofermentations, including kimchi, pickles and yellow peas. All the ingredients are sourced less than 100 kilometers from its production kitchen, from surrounding and certified organic farms in Saint-Valérien.
While big names like Maple Leaf Foods are also embarking on the production of tempeh, Pierre-Olivier Canuel assures that he will make a point of meeting demand if it increases, delighted to see the product increasingly rid of his unloved label. Already, two first points of sale in Quebec and Montreal have been added to the first six, distributed in eastern Quebec. But “the stupid race for profit or perpetual growth”, very little for him. “An important value in my life is undoubtedly humility, and I find that I try to apply it without realizing it in my business as well. When you’re fermenting, you’re just doing half the job, the micro-organisms do the rest. You have to know how to respect them, be humble in the face of what you can and cannot control. »
Faced with what he considers to be obvious, in particular the promotion of sustainable food and food self-sufficiency, he emphasizes that you just have to do things that make sense and that the rest will happen by itself.
do something better
Start from what is around you to be useful in the food chain. These words of Pierre-Olivier Canuel could have been those of Jérôme Perron, founder of Ellipse conservation in Rimouski.
This trained engineer who became a pastry chef with his wife had the same trigger when he noticed the omnipresence of food waste. “I said to myself: ‘If we, who have an environmental conscience, continue to do our daily routine, imagine those who don’t have that conscience, who haven’t read all the studies…’ So I decided to do something better. »
And this better, Jérôme Perron found it in the recovery of grocery waste after attending a conference by Éric Ménard, a researcher on food waste. The only thing missing was how to tackle it, and that’s where a quick read about freeze-drying changed everything. This process, first invented to feed the astronauts, allows the evaporation of the water of vegetation of a food – previously frozen under vacuum – thanks to the sublimation of the ice in water vapour. “I thought that by making freeze-drying accessible, I could make a difference. »
The unique texture of freeze-dried foods generated great enthusiasm from the start, and a crowdfunding campaign confirmed consumer interest in this type of fruit and vegetable snack. That was all it took to start transforming one of the most recurrent types of waste in groceries: the trimmings of pineapples sold shelled, which represent 45% of total waste. “I was interested in the heart of the fruit. Once you remove the water, you have something hyperconcentrated in flavours,” explains Mr. Perron.
If he prefers to focus on interesting fruits and vegetables as a snack, he is also in discussion to acquire material, freeze-dry it and resell it to partners.
The waste bill
Another aspect to note is that the IGAs Coop Jessop and Sirois, which provide basic foodstuffs, then participate in the marketing of Ellipse conservation products. And this is only the beginning, says Jérôme, who wants to find new points of sale through the network of the Fédération des cooperatives en alimentation du Québec.
One year after the beginning of the adventure and 12 freeze-drying machines now in action thanks to a grant from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of Quebec, Ellipse conservation wishes to distribute its products throughout the province from September. The goal would be to make small by developing other processing spaces across Quebec and Canada.
Jérôme Perron also wants to raise awareness. “It’s taboo, wasting food, no one boasts of doing it, but we all do it. We have to question our practices and adopt eco-responsible approaches that will really have an impact. »