Peaches

This is huge. We heard all you Lufavores out there loud and clear: you want more responsibly-grown fruit on the Marketplace. So we got together as a team and figured out how to make it happen. Our quest for the best, juiciest, most sustainable produce brought us to Warner’s Farm in the beautiful Niagara region.

Hold up a second! What happened to local?

At Lufa Farms, we’re committed to making sure that ordering fresh, local, and responsible groceries is super simple for Montrealers. But we also recognize that, without fruit on the Marketplace, many Lufavores have to take an extra trip to the grocery store each week to get what they need. A lot of the fruit you find there will be shipped over long distances and won’t taste great by the time it gets to your kitchen.

So we cast a slightly wider net. Since we found the best milk in Saguenay, seven hours north of Montreal, we thought this would be a good starting place for what we can reasonably call local. We hunted for the best fruit from within that same distance, grown by farmers who share our vision. Fortunately, there are many farmers, like Verger Maniadakis, who responsibly grow certain types of fruit incredibly close to Montreal. But our hunt for other kinds of fruit led us a bit further, to areas of Ontario where the climate is more temperate.

Warner’s Farm is located between Lake Ontario and the Niagara Escarpment, which offers a unique climate of warm, sunny summer and moderate winters. Due to this location, Warner’s has a longer frost-free season, ideal for cultivating stonefruit (like peaches) and grapes.

At Lufa Farms, we’re also committed to transparency. We believe you should know where your food comes from and the people who are making it. So here’s an introduction to Torrie Warner, who currently owns and operates the farm that his grandfather, Frank, started in the fall of 1919.

Warner’s is nothing if not a family business. “I was born here, on this farm. It’s everything I know,” Torrie told us, “I’ve worked on the farm since I could walk. I made boxes as a child, started driving the tractor when I was 7.”

Torrie with his father, Fred, who still helps out on the farm from time to time.

Torrie and the Lufa Farms team share a vision: he prides himself on sustainably growing the most delicious produce and making sure that it’s fresh when it gets to you. “The main difference,” Torrie explains, “is that I don’t do rooftop farming. I farm in the earth, as laid here by the glaciers and lakes thousands if not millions of years before us.”

We asked Torrie what he thought about our commitment to local products. “I’ve never had an avocado,” he said, “Why would I? They don’t grow in Canada.”

What we found most refreshing about Torrie during our conversations is that he’s a realist. “Local food was the model for my grandfather. Transportation didn’t exist, it’s just the way it was,” he elaborated, “Today, we have choice from around the world—good or bad—and the choice is competing with us: increasing fossil fuel consumption, increasing transportation, lowering returns to farmers, and forcing industry to leave Canada. Is this progress or regress?”

From our perspective here at Lufa Farms, we couldn’t be happier starting a partnership with Warner’s. Torrie’s vision, thoughtfulness, and deep understanding of what it means to run a family farm makes him and his farm a valuable addition to the Lufa Farms family. Plus their peaches are insanely juicy and out-of-this-world delicious. We hope you think so too!

Insanely juicy, no kidding.