Canadian Food Focus is a program that answers consumers’ questions about food and how it is grown and produced in Canada. Through our website and social media platforms, Canadian Food Focus is quickly becoming a place to tell our Canadian food and farming stories, explore how food is grown, share recipes, and provide useful advice from experts to help people make confident food choices. In short, Canadian Food Focus celebrates the great food grown here!
Since Farm & Food Care Saskatchewan launched this initiative in 2019, Canadian Food Focus has reached at least 67 million people and achieved engagements of almost 18 million. Engagement is an important metric as it indicates that consumers not only saw but processed and then acted in some way to like, share, comment or click through to our content. Further, we are reaching beyond the usual farm and influencer echo chambers to engage our target audience in urban areas. Over the past several years, Canadian Food Focus has shared over 800 articles; more than 5,000 posts through English and French social media channels; almost 400 videos on YouTube; and 20 learning courses with more than 50 published lessons!
In addition to our online activities, Canadian Food Focus supports and participates in several outreach events to raise awareness of CFF and farming and food information generally. Our outreach projects have included: Taste Canada Awards, Food Day Canada, CanFit Pro National Conference, Dietitians of Canada National Conference, Canadian Culinary Federation Convention and numerous national webinars for students and consumers.
Our monthly newsletter, Great Food Grown Here, launched in 2022, now goes to over 3,200 contacts across Canada and beyond. We’re pleased to see a very high level of interest, with an open rate of 57% and click rate of 7.5%–well above average the industry average for this type of newsletter (compare to 27% overall open rate and 1.3% click rate).
We also introduced a new Ask A Farmer podcast in February 2023. Our collection of podcast discussion covers the gamut from farming practices to eating healthy to new scientific innovations to consumer buying trends. A new podcast is posted each month to a growing listener base.
A few of the cool resources on Canadian Food Focus:
- Almost 60 videos about different types of farms across Canada
- More than 240 recipes showcasing great Canadian-grown foods
- Cook-along videos of recipes using Canadian ingredients
- Ask a Farmer/Ask an Expert videos to common consumer questions
- YouTube Series that follows a Canadian rancher as she shares stories and information about their ranch
- Articles with timely and interesting information under the categories of Health, Recipes, In Your Kitchen, On the Farm and Canadian Food Stories
- What’s In Season chart of Canadian fruits and vegetables
- Ask A Farmer Podcast
Check us out:
canadianfoodfoocus.org and @CDNFoodFocus on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter or YouTube
Be proud of the food we produce. Share Canadian Food Focus content through your networks and work with us to help Canadian food and farm stories.
LoveCDNfood #LoveCDNfarms
For more information or a presentation on this project, contact Dorothy Long, Managing Director of Canadian Food Focus.