ottawa foodies

ok, just had someone come to the door selling meat.

the deal is they come back tomorrow with samples - supposed to be locally raised, hormone free etc. he said he represents a number of farmers

thought he said nutrafarms? anyone heard of this?

My friends went with a place like that and ended up really dissatisfied but I don't recall details.

With all the info on this site why would you need a middle man?

not looking for a middle man - i was sitting on the couch as the "salesman" lined up an appt with my girlfriend - i did laugh when he asked if we buy frozen or fresh and she touted up......Fresh ONLY, we go to the butchery, aubrey's, and saslove's.....not what the salesman wanted to hear.

just curious if anyone else has had this people banging at their door.

We used to have a guy in Carleton Place swing by every two weeks to take orders and drop off our previous orders. We were always impressed with the quality and took advantage of their rotating discounted items. We started out with a vacuum-sealed sampler pack to see what we liked and what we didn't. We ended up liking/loving it all. This guy seriously had the best bacon I've ever had....but then he just stopped showing up. I sure wish I could remember who it was so I could go get some more of that bacon, and the fajita beef, chicken...etc

They used to be Canadian Select Farm Foods before they went out of business a couple years ago and reformed as Nutrafarms. I'd be cautious about going with them, from what I've read online. There are so many better options here in Ottawa that allow people to buy directly from the farmer --I don't get the appeal of businesses like this. ;)

Most of those were scams . . . they even gave you a free freezer. But if you check the quantities and prices of what you actually got, it was double what you would pay in the supermarket.

When I pointed that out the salesman said "but this is really good quality". To which I replied (my bad) "then I guess we just can't afford quality".

I remember some scam like this, they attract you with the meat and then offer you deals on kraft dinner and canned food. Yes, that sure helps local farmers..

This sounds much different than my experience. I was approached by Canadian Grocers (I think) a while back, which was not even close to being interesting. I enjoy shopping, finding deals, hand picking fruit/veg/meat. I don't want a huge freezer full of meat that will be frozen for 6-8 months. I try to go not have enough in my freezer that I can't use it in 3 months or so.

We used to get telephone calls (mostly messages left on our voicemail) letting us know someone would be in our neighborhood to drop off free meat on some given day. Don't know who this was as I wasn't interested and found it very odd.

Lavergne Western Beef has pretty incredible bacon - and cheap as heck too at about $3.30 per lb

Thanks! I'll definitely check it out. I'm out in Navan regularly for training.

Does the Laverne Western Beef bacon have any preservatives or phosphates or nitrites in it??

I am trying to avoid those things in my food.
I buy organic bacon right now and I'm paying $14 a lb around...and it is awesome.
Wanted to get some this week.....and the vendor has none listed at the market :(
the odd thing is my bacon comes frozen...it is ok though,just have to defrost and cook the whole package,lol...

I think those package deals where they vome to your house is actually more expensive than the butcher shops.
they also try and sell you tons of canned foods from what I heard on another forum.

I don't mind frozen meats,but I like to know where my meats come from and not some mystery of who processed it.

Yes, nitrites in it.

funny enough, we opted to cash in our group on certificate at Grafiti's in kanata and totally forgot about the "meat salesman" coming by.....oh well.

Is there any kind of phosphate or other kind of "chemicals" in it?

The bacon I have right now uses only sea salt and not regular salt also

nope, just nitrites

I too make bacon without nitrites.

This is to remind consumers that there are a variety of pitfalls out there. There's no chance of stopping most of these types of fraud, but if a few people can save themselves then it is worth it. I feel seriously sorry for them or anyone, who is ignorant enough to buy something or accept some sort of service from a door to door who would come popping out on your doorstep. Read more here, personalmoneynetwork.com/.

Several reputable butchers or farms from the surrounding area would deliver once a week to Ottawa or come to the farmers market.

I would be very careful of a company roaming around the Ottawa and Toronto area, they are called NutraFarms. They will try to provide you a sample and even heard they take back the sample if you don't sign up for a $3000 contract. NutraFarms seem to have been setup to deceive people.

The company has not being honest when I started asking questions such as where are the farms, where are the certification to back all the free range, no antibiotic claims. Nutrafarms Regional Manager provided excuses saying the farmers are shy and want to remain anonymous. Also their web site is "under construction" I was told after an email to someone in the "contact us". So any affiliations or certifications are not present on the web site. That actually makes sens because they don't have any. When you buy from NutraFarms, there is no way that you can verify what you are feeding your family. Also when looking at various trace on the internet it seems Nutrafarms started operating only in May 2008 (not 2001 as they claim), before that, they must have operated under the name Canadian Select Farm because they both share the same postal address.

Maybe Nutrafarms is truly what they claim but it is not possible to verify because the company is not being transparent at all and also uses many deceiving tactics. Maybe the "blast freeze" makes the meat better as oppose to free range, etc.

Did you notice those that ordered, that you actually don't know the quantities you ordered until you receive it? This is quite a weird way of buy goods and from what I could see you will get about 160lbs of meat for the cost of $2895, that is probably 3 times the price you get from the real "free range" farmers out there that has all certificate and you can visit the farms.

Nutrafarms uses another deceiving tactics, they will provide you with a certificate with a big "Free Range" stamp. Unfortunately that stamp is an illusion because the small print shows "Free Range Canada Inc". That company is a whole seller no certification at all see www.freerangecanada.ca.

Anyways you have 10 days cooling off period to cancel in writing via registered letter. Beside the cost of registered letter, NutraFarm can't impose any other costs since they didn't provide you yet with any products except the free sample. see www.sse.gov.on.ca

nutra farms just came knocking on my door saying they will be in the neighbourhood with free samples tomorrow.

I don't think most meats in Canada are allowed to have antibiotics in them.

I recently keep seeing "free from antibiotic" chicken at loblaws and then in small print they put all Canadian chicken by law has no antibiotics.

For buying from farmers I really like Marche Outaouais food co-op and Bank St Saussage for local made smoked salmon and chicken.

I don't really look at the prices of my meats too much as I do not eat tons of meat.

Guys, always be wary of people selling stuff door to door including meats, as a number are rip-off artists. In recent years, there have been many reports of door-to-door scams. So, don't be a victim. Know what to look for. To shun this incident from happening, installation of home alarm systems must be considered to allow monitoring and viewing of recorded videos. personalmoneynetwork.com/

LOL... I almost want to leave that post just for its entertainment value.

Psss... home alarm system...

I've had pretty good luck with my moat...

lol they had a lead generator knocking on our door trying to set up something for a free sample.

When the sales person called before coming, they want to sell a freezer order for a year lol. I blew them off.

I hear of this,but if they do not even let you know who the "local farmers" are why even bother.

I do buy some frozen meats,but it is from the farmer co-op in Hull and some of the smaller producers freeze the sausages they have made for them.
I get stuff from Saveurs des Monts and the chicken and turkey sausages are always frozen, same for the chicken pot pies.