Provenance
The supplier chain is the brand.
We started with one farm and a problem. The farmer raised pork on pasture, the way he had grown up doing it, and there was no shop in the city ready to pay him properly for the time it took. Larder is what we built to solve that.
Eleven years on, we work with twenty-three farms, fisheries, dairies, mills, and small producers across Ontario and Quebec. Every supplier on the wall behind the counter has been visited at least once by one of us. Most of them, more than that. We change suppliers when the standard slips. We add suppliers when something we care about needs a home in the city.
The shop's reputation lives or dies on these relationships. We do not buy from distributors who can't tell us the farm name. We do not stock anything we cannot stand behind at the counter. If you ask “where is this from?”, we will tell you.
The principles
How we choose.
Four standing rules. They've held since 2014.
Visit before you buy.
We won’t list a supplier we have not been to. The first order is always after a farm visit, the next one after we’ve seen the operation through a season.
Whole-animal whenever the program allows.
When we buy beef, lamb, or pork, we buy the whole carcass. The shoulder and the offal pay for the steaks. It is the only way the math works for the farmer.
Within 200 km when the season permits.
Most of our produce, dairy, and grain comes from within a 200 km circle. We make exceptions for things that can’t grow here and for the small set of European cheeses worth shipping.
If the standard slips, the relationship ends.
We have ended relationships over feed changes, processing decisions, and one painful conversation about hormones. The standard is the standard.
Our suppliers
A short list of the people we work with.
The wall behind the counter has the full set with photographs. Here are eight of them.
Beretta Family Farm
King City, Ontario
Beef and lamb. Working with us since 2015.
Hooves and Heath
Prince Edward County
Heritage pork breeds, pasture-raised.
Cookstown Greens
Cookstown, Ontario
Specialty produce. Saturday delivery.
Cows & Co.
Prince Edward Island
Clothbound and cave-aged cheeses.
1847 Stone Milling
St. Marys, Ontario
Heritage grain stone-milled to order.
Hewitt's Dairy
Hagersville, Ontario
Glass-bottle whole milk and cream.
Royal Beach Fisheries
Wheatley, Ontario
Sustainable Great Lakes fish, dock-direct.
Forbes Wild Foods
Toronto
Foraged mushrooms, ramps, and wild berries.
From the operator
“Our customers pay double for the meat because they trust where it came from. The shop’s job is to keep telling that story credibly. Lose the credibility and you’ve lost the shop.”
From our head butcher