Promoting learning opportunities focused on food literacy, food culture, heritage and its relations with agriculture.
The Canadian Beef Information Gateway
The Canadian Beef Information Gateway serves as a comprehensive digital platform designed to meet the diverse needs of consumers and industry professionals.
For consumers, it offers detailed profiles of a number of beef cuts, complete with recommended cooking methods, food safety guidelines, and instructional videos, empowering cooks to explore new recipes and preparation techniques with confidence.
Students and educators benefit from a wealth of resources that enhance understanding of Canadian beef production, culinary applications, and nutritional information, supporting educational initiatives and food literacy.
The Gateway is an amazing tool to strengthen the connection between Canadian beef producers and the broader community.
Educational Workshops
2024 Canada Beef “Graded for Greatness” Workshop
The 2024 Cooks the Books student cooking competition took place on Sunday, October 20th, 2024 at Cirillo’s Academy in Toronto.
The theme for this year’s competition is “Global Flavours Grow in Canada”, which challenges the students to explore the rich tapestry of global cuisines and cultural influences that have shaped their culinary journeys. The challenge is to create a distinctive recipe that marries these international inspirations with the best of Canadian ingredients, branded partner products and a unique cut of Canada Beef.
The student chefs prepared their dishes, start-to-finish, live in front of the crowd and two industry kitchen judges, and then presented their final plates to the judges panel. The winners were announced on Monday, October 21st, 2024, during the 2024 Taste Canada Awards Soirée, with the Gold Winning team taking home a $3,000 bursary, some amazing kitchen swag, and the title of Canada’s Best New Student Chefs!
2023 Canada Beef “Cut Along Workshop”
Live from the Canadian Beef Centre of Excellence, Cooks the Books students and industry took part in a unique virtual learning experience. Guests watched a cut-by-cut demonstration of three Canadian beef sub-primals by Chef Mathieu Paré, Executive Director of the Canadian Beef Centre of Excellence. Colleges were invited to procure the same sub-primals as Chef Mathieu so they could ‘Cut Along’ with him to get a true sense of the techniques.
Taste Canada Recipe Development and Food Photography Workshop
In the Taste Canada Recipe Development Workshop, presented by Canola Eat Well, watch along as an expert recipe developer (Jennifer MacKenzie, P.H.Ec.) and food photographer (Cindy Bekkedam, RD) share their tips to develop recipes with precision and take photos that look good enough to eat!
Food and Nutrition Trends Workshop with Canola Eat Well
Hosted by Registered Dietitian and Certified Diabetes Educator, Jodi Robinson, who shares food and nutrition trends with Canadian culinary students, giving them a healthy edge to their kitchen creations.
Canadian Food Focus What’s In Season Resource
We celebrate four distinct seasons in Canada. When we’re eating fruits and vegetables in season, it means we get to enjoy them at their peak freshness. Plus, we love to support our local farmers!
CanadianFoodFocus.org is a gathering place to tell Canadian food and farming stories and to explore how food is grown and raised, share recipes and provide useful advice to help you make confident food choices.
Start by choosing in-season ingredients. Canadian Food Focus makes it easy with their handy "What's In Season" resource.
Field Trips
2024 Farm Tour
Culinary students explored Canada’s world-class beef production at the Ontario Beef Research Centre in Elora, Ont., thanks to Taste Canada, Canada Beef, Canadian Food Focus, and the University of Guelph.
They joined Dr. Katie Wood, a professor in U of G’s Department of Animal Biosciences, to learn about beef cattle production and technology and tour the facility, which is owned by the Government of Ontario through its agency, Agricultural Research and Innovation Ontario, and managed by U of G through the Ontario Agri-Food Innovation Alliance. As part of the Cooks the Books student competition presented by Canada Beef, the tour showcased sustainable practices, advanced research, and the farm-to-fork journey, equipping future chefs with the knowledge to feature Canadian beef with confidence.
Canadian Agriculture
Canada Beef VIP
A very important protein, beef has a remarkable (often untold) nutrition story. Canada Beef’s staff of registered dietitians have put together a fun video of fact not fiction about the role of beef in a healthy life. Beef belongs on Canadian tables, along with other wholesome foods grown and raised right here.
Guardians of the Grasslands
Guardians of the Grasslands is a short film by Story Brokers Media House film-maker Ben Wilson. Guardians of the Grasslands considers the question: Is what we thought was a problem really a solution?
This 12-minute award winning short film explores the current state of one of the world’s most endangered ecosystems, the Great Plains grasslands, and the role agriculture can play as an important ecosystem service to promote its survival. As filmmakers who live in the Prairies, Ben and creative partner Sarah Wray, felt compelled to tell the story of the Canadian grasslands’ ecosystem because of what’s at stake for all Canadians and for the future of our planet.
Too Close to Home
Who plays an important role in helping to manage wildfire risk? Canadian cows and ranchers step up! Watch the new short documentary film “Too Close to Home” by the same filmmakers of “Guardians of the Grasslands”, Sarah Wray and Ben Wilson from Story Brokers Media House.
On the Same Side of the Fence
Dr. Christian Artuso, as the Manitoba Director for Birds Canada, presented the consideration that environmental and agricultural concerns could be on the same side of the fence. In this condensed version of the full lecture (and also in illustrative video shorts), Dr. Artuso makes the case that perhaps it’s time to re-think our approach to ethical eating based on the Canadian prairie experience where environmental experts seek out agriculture partners to secure, maintain and protect fragile ecosystems.