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For immediate releaseMay 16, 2014
(Guelph): Mike Schreiner, leader of the Green Party of Ontario and candidate in Guelph, toured some of his old stomping grounds today.
“I can still feel the excitement of starting my first business on a farm just outside Guelph,” said Schreiner. “It’s very satisfying building something from the ground up. In this case literally from the ground up — from seed to table.”
As co-founder of WOW Foods, an award winning local organic food distribution company, Schreiner worked for over 10 years to connect local farmers with consumers in the GTA and Guelph.
“We had a dream of getting local farmers’ produce to urban markets. Now it seems normal for people to buy local. But then people didn’t always see the point. It’s like that with innovation,” said Schreiner.
He is also co-founder of Earthdance Organics, a Guelph-based food production business that supplied area health foods stores and farmer’s markets in the early 2000s.
Schreiner sampled the apple and saskatoon berry wine at Cox Creek Cellars, a few kilometers down the road from Cox Creek Farm, where WOW Foods began.
Schreiner also visited Bella Roma Foods, founded by husband-and-wife team Harm Takel and Elisa Baggio-Takel. Bella Roma is dedicated to carrying Elisa’s father’s passion and love for food.
“When we talk about jobs in the Green Party,” said Schreiner, “We are talking about good jobs in thriving communities, not insta-jobs in a throwaway economy. We are talking about bringing the best of the past together with the promise of the future, just as we see here.”
“I hope I have something like this to give my grandchildren,” said Schreiner. “It’s heartening to know there is still a tradition of passing on a love of farming and passion for food production from generation to generation.”
The Green Party is on a mission to bring honesty, integrity, and good public policy back to Queen’s Park.
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