Food Less Travelled

Nourishing Community

Story by Aric McBay
Photos by Suzy Lamont

“Community always revolves around food,” says Kim Perry. “If you want to be around community, be around food.”

Kim and Dave Perry run both Perry Maine-Anjou farm and the Food Less Travelled store in Verona, South Frontenac.

Their farm operates with the help of their kids, Justin, Jenna, Kaitlyn, Grant, and Mason. The family raises a variety of livestock including prize-winning Maine-Anjou cattle, Berkshire pigs, meat chickens, turkeys, laying hens, and Muscovy ducks. They have a handful of donkeys as guard animals against predators.

“We try to raise our animals as naturally as we can,” explains Dave. “We’re not organic, but we don’t use hormones.”

“The benefit of raising meat naturally is that you have control of where it’s processed, and how,” says Kim. “That animal starts with quality, and leaves the butcher with the same quality, so that people can eat quality food.”

The best place to buy that quality food is their store, Food Less Travelled, which is now in its thirteenth year.

Food Less Travelled carries not only products from the Perry farm, but from local farmers across Frontenac County and the region.At their store, Kim makes meals and prepared food from all of their meats: tourtières with pork, shepherd’s pie with beef, chicken pot pie, and a pork and chicken “Canadian-Cajun jambalaya.” They also make a variety of soups like chicken noodle, split-pea and ham, and vegetable soups, as well as seasonal options like carrot-parsnip or potato-leek soups.

They choose carefully what foods to stock and sell at their store. “We try to stay as local as possible,” explains Kim. “Where it was grown is a priority, and then where it was processed. Whether it is organic, if possible, and whether it is from a family farm or a small family processor.”

“Local family farms,” Dave emphasizes, “as opposed to factory farms.”

“We have such a good, close-knit farming community,” says Kim, “right from South Frontenac to North Frontenac, we can pick up the phone and get anything we need.” It’s something tourists often mention, Kim observes: “When people come from out of town, they always comment on how lucky the people are in Frontenac County to have local food available to them.”

Dave and Kim both come from hard-working families. “I’ve been farming my whole life,” says Dave. “I remember milking cows by hand when I was six years old. Our kids are the seventh generation on this farm.”

Their work at the store is about more than making a living; it’s about nourishing their community.

“I really believe that communities should feed each other,” says Kim. “That might mean actual food, but also support—social support or emotional support.”

And because of their connections to people across the region, Food Less Travelled has become a community hub, as Kim explains. “People come to the store for everything from ‘where can I get a safety pin’ to ‘who’s the guy that can fix this equipment.’”

“I don’t care if you’re someone with a lot of money from a big city, or an elder who can’t shovel your driveway, or somebody who is sick but who usually looks after everybody else,” says Kim. “We all rely on each other.”

“Food builds community, and it builds trust,” Kim concludes. “It all goes hand in hand.”

 Where to find Food Less Travelled:

• Food Less Travelled can be found at 6674 Road 38, Verona, and online at http://foodlesstravelled.ca/.
• Along with meat from the Perry farm, many products from many local farms and processors can be found at the store, including:
  • Local dairy from Limestone Organic Creamery and Wilton Creek Dairy (goat milk).
  • Back Forty Artisan Cheese and Wilton Cheese Factory.
  • Produce from Patchwork Gardens, Burt’s Greenhouses, Fruition Berry Farm, Rockledge Farm, and others.
  • Products from Bee Queen Honey, Conboy Maple Syrup, Benacres Farms (lamb), and Topsy Farms (including wool blankets and sheepskins).