What Québec Wants™

Where are the food swappers in Québec?

The Food Swap Network defines a food swap as a recurring event where members of a community share homemade, homegrown, or foraged foods with each other. Swaps allow direct trades to take place between attendees, e.g., a loaf of bread for a jar of pickles or a half-dozen backyard eggs. Swap events also include a potluck as an immediate food-sharing (and sometimes item-sampling) component. These events are a delicious way to diversify the homemade foods in your own pantry while getting to know members of your local food community.

It’s becoming a movement - what the Food Swap Network calls community-based food sharing groups. The Network’s website introduces visitors to people it calls “the core founders of the modern food swapping movement”. They are described as five ladies that have “spread the swap love across the US, Canada, and abroad by answering new hosts’ questions, describing food swapping to the media, and building communities around sharing food.”

That may be so but there’s another lady who’s getting a lot of attention.

Her name is Isabelle Baril-Ortley, a Quebecker living in California.

Here’s how she is described in an article by David Boylan published this week in The Coast News:

Baril-Ortley has a fascinating background, having been raised in a small town in Quebec where farming, foraging, hunting and trapping, fishing, making cheese, canning and butchering were a way of life. She mentioned that many of the photos of her youth include some type of wild game that she or her family had successfully hunted.

This was not hunting for sport; it was to fill the freezer for the long Canadian winters.

Baril-Ortley fondly remembers the canning parties with family and neighbors where everyone contributed and left with their fair share of whatever the group brought to the occasion. Baril-Ortley was farm/woods to table before those terms were catchy marketing phrases for restaurants. She really has walked the talk so to speak and those experiences formed the roots of the modern food swap.

I searched the Food Swap Network for a Food Swap in Québec and came out empty. That’s too bad. Perhaps Ms. Baril-Ortley still has family there and could encourage them to return to their roots as food swappers.

Pet Parents in Quebec

Mark Penn, better known as Hilary Clinton’s chief strategist who predicted she would clinch the nomination with the California primaries, wrote a book about microtrends (Microtrend: the small forces bdehind tomorrow’s big changes, Hachette Book Group USA, 2007). While his credibility as a trend watcher may have taken a hit, he’s credited with having identified “soccer moms” as a crucial constituency in President Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign

His book lists more than seventy such microtrends in the US – trends that are wielding great influence on politics and business that marketers can tap into. Penn claims that only one percent, or three million people, is enough to launch a business or social movement. I periodically review some of these trends and look for signs that they offer similar opportunities in Quebec.

Microtrend: Pet Parents

There is a new breed of pets, and they have a new role in our society. They are replacing kids as the  number one companion in America. And as literally the new kids on the block, some pets are being elevated to a new life of luxury, with practically a black American Express Card, a Platinum Frequent Flyer card, and permanent maid and a butler. They have achieved what few have achieved before them – the chance to have high-class problems and a high-class life. In America today, the top 1 percent of pets live better than 99 percent of the world’s population.

What about “pet parents” in Quebec?

In January 2006, RBC’s Annual Housing Survey asked Canadians if they had pets in their home. 56% of Canadian said yes, 52% in Quebec, 57% in Ontario and as high as 67% in the Maritimes. It also asked Canadians if they had altered their home in any way to accommodate their pets. That would most likely be a sign of pet parenthood… 21% of Canadians with pets in their home said yes – as high as 30% in BC. Quebeckers were the least likely to say yes at 11%.

In his book, Mark Penn writes about the market opportunities created by Pet Parents – clothing, toys, and even mattresses. He refers to Honda’s 2005 introduction of the Wow, a concept car for people who regularly transport dogs. The floors are wood for easy cleanup and the back door has compartments for leashes, brushes, and pooper-scoopers. But Pet Parents’ biggest impact has to be in the area of animal medicine. We took a look at the purchase of animal health products among pet owning households in Quebec and the ROC based on PMB data. Quebeckers are significantly less likely to have purchased these types of products in the past year than Canadians in the rest of the country.

Based on these two data points, I’d say that Pet Parenting isn’t yet a microtrend in Quebec.

Sun-Haters in Quebec?

Mark Penn, better known as Hilary Clinton’s chief strategist who predicted she would clinch the nomination with the California primaries, wrote a book about microtrends (Microtrend: the small forces behind tomorrow’s big changes, Hachette Book Group USA, 2007). While his credibility as a trend watcher may have taken a hit, he’s credited with having identified “soccer moms” as a crucial constituency in President Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign.

His book lists more than seventy such microtrends in the US – trends that are wielding great influence on politics and business that marketers can tap into. Penn claims that only one percent, or three million people, is enough to launch a business or social movement. I’ll review some of these trends and look for signs that they offer similar opportunities in Quebec.

Microtrend: Sun-Haters

These are the people who greet summer sunshine with floppy hats that look like Snoopy’s World War I bomber gear (complete with earflaps), grudgingly show up at pool parties in full-body wetsuits, and slather on fourteen layers of 50+ sunscreen just to go to work.

Sun-Haters have spawned an industry for sun-safe clothing, which means long-sleeved shirts and pants that are woven more tightly than regular clothes. They’re also triggering innovations that build sun protection into our daily lives. Just coming on to the market is a product called Sun-Guard, a laundry aid that washes sun protection right into clothes, boosting their UPF level from 5 to 30.

We took a look at Quebeckers’ usage of suntan and sunscreen products based on PMB data.

Sun-Haters use self-tanners, which work with the skin to alter skin colour without the risk of UV exposure. This microtrend is apparently responsible for the tremendous growth of these products in recent years. And Quebeckers are significantly more likely to use self-tanners (3.9% of adults 18+ in English Canada use self tanners compared to 6.3% in French Quebec – 114 index).

But before you jump to the conclusion that Quebeckers are more likely to be Sun-Haters than Canadians in the ROC, look at the more complete picture.

Quebeckers are significantly more likely to use suntan oil (144 index). They’re significantly less likely to use sunscreen products (89 index) and sunscreen with a high SPF of 36+ (52 index).

It should therefore not be a surprise that Quebeckers are significantly more likely to use sunburn and after sun products (126 index).

The days of the face tanners that literally fried your face might be over but this data suggest that Quebeckers are not yet as inclined to hate the sun.