Taste the Countryside aims to bring life back to local dining: Andrew Coppolino

The pandemic has not been kind to the food and beverage industry, and its devastating effects will be felt foryearsin areas like the Waterloo region.

As businesses and customers get used to the new pandemic reality, many organizations have been rebuilding business and trying to recoup losses. Taste the Countryside is a local food event that's just one example of that work.

Following a successful inaugural year in 2020, Taste the Countryside will return Sept.23 to Oct.3, offering set-menu specials in the Ontario communities of Woolwich, Wellesley, Wilmot and North Dumfries.

Organized by Woolwich Township Development Services, Taste the Countryside highlights food businesses and looks to drive traffic to them.

"It's a 10-day, prix fixe dining event in the countryside,"said Jenna Morris, a Woolwich Township Economic Development and Tourism officer."The townships all have participating businesses that are offering a fixed menu at either the $15 or $35 price points, and locals and visitors are welcome to come and try the menus."

The event was inspired by the recent Eloralicious,modelled afterWinterlicious and Summerlicious events designed to help save Toronto restaurants in the wake of the SARS outbreak in 2003.

Taste the Countryside helps build connections and partnerships in the region's rural communities, and last year's eventgave them a boost of business at summer's end when restaurants could reopen.

Currently, there are more than a dozen participating food-and-beverage businesses, with more coming on board. Visitors can let them knowthey arethere for the special Taste the Countryside menu.

Event helped during'challenging' time

Event participant Rural Roots Brewing Company and co-owner Roger Lichti said that last year's event helped drive some traffic to his business at a terrible time.

"We were able to stay open for retail, which helped us significantly during the pandemic," Lichti said. "Our focus was as a social gathering place here in Elmira, and that was taken away from us. That was very challenging."

With his brewery barely open before the pandemic hit early in 2020, the countryside tasting event meant help with sales.

Morris saidthe partnerships and collaborations had a "trickle-down" effect that spread the wealth around tovarious businesses, which was especially important to rural communities and its farming base.

"One of the most obvious problems was the restaurants and food establishments being closed for so long. Our producers, farmers and growers were also not getting business because the food establishments weren't open."

Farmers selling incities experienced similar difficulty. But with many rural communities, those farmers could also be a close neighbour in the community.

'Food should be accessible'

That said, an additional component of this year's Taste the Countryside creates a further link between food businesses and their suppliers, growers and farmers, and ultimately their customers.

"It's unique in that the $15 and $35 price points help us ensure that we can catch every establishment that would like to participate," Morris said. "Food should be accessible, and we've created a list of producers. It's different and, we think, improved from last year in that we've required businesses to incorporate local ingredients in their menu."

"We had a good time with Taste the Countryside last year and had some great feedback from people who had never heard of us but did because of this event."