How Ontario’s Buy Local Movement Is Reshaping the Poultry Industry

Ontario’s Buy Local food movement has moved well past the farmers’ market and into mainstream grocery retail and food service. The question ‘where does this come from?’ is being asked more often, by more consumers and more purchasing managers, than at any point in the history of the provincial food industry.

Why Buy Local Matters for Chicken Specifically

Chicken is a perishable product with a relatively short shelf life in fresh form. The shorter the distance between processing and consumption, the fresher the product. Ontario-processed chicken reaches Ontario consumers and restaurants faster than chicken processed elsewhere and shipped in — and fresher product means better taste, better texture, and longer usable life after purchase.

There’s also a food safety dimension. Ontario processors are regulated by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and subject to provincial food safety oversight. The traceability of a locally processed product — from the farm through the processor to the customer — is significantly cleaner than that of an imported product that has moved through multiple jurisdictions.

What Restaurants and Retailers Are Discovering

Forward-thinking Ontario restaurants and grocery retailers are increasingly asking their suppliers for Ontario-sourcing documentation — not just as a feel-good claim, but as a verifiable supply chain fact they can communicate to their customers. Operators who can back the claim with documentation are gaining an advantage over those who can’t.

D&D Poultry’s Local Sourcing Position

We source Ontario-raised chicken wherever possible. We process in Toronto. Our Omega-3 line comes from Country Poultry Processing — fifth-generation Mennonite farmers in Ontario. Three generations of the Dikeos family — a Greek immigrant family that built this company in Ontario — have operated on the belief that supporting Ontario’s agricultural community is simply the right way to run a food business. It was our practice long before it became a movement.