Baker asked to leave Riverdale Market
Heather of Vinehaven Bakery
Decides to stay away from Dufferin Farmer's market too
From the weekly market notes for October 28, 2004:
Last Tuesday a group of at least four public health inspectors came to Riverdale Market and checked people out. They told Heather Karmiol, the sourdough baker who comes to our market as well, to take her (commercial plastic) bread bins off the grass, which she did, and then they asked her to produce her inspected kitchen certificate. When she told them their Vineland bakery kitchen had not been inspected, they told her to have the kitchen inspected by next week, and she said, no problem. A short time later, after conferring (I guess) they ordered her off the property with all her bread unsold. There was an outcry among the customers there but Heather did not argue and left. There's been quite a bit of buzz about it since then.
I spoke to Mr.Angus Tsang of Toronto Public Health yesterday and he said rules are rules, and just because Heather has been selling her bread for two years is no reason not remove her from the market as soon as Public Health has time to come there. He also said that the bread might have been touched by some blades of grass that poked up through the bottom of the commercial bread racks, that there was wind and so dust might have got on it (not bagged), and that people were very lucky that there had not been some bad effects on their health prior to this timely public health intervention.
The upshot of Heather's rather shocking experience at Riverdale is that Vinehaven Bakery will not be returning to either market. They are very occupied with their catering and their young children, and although it will be easy for them to get the paperwork done for their large and beautiful commercial baking kitchen, that experience with public health has made them lose their taste for going to markets, at least for now. (36 hours of work was wasted -- and all that beautiful bread.)
We're waiting for some more phone calls to be returned, because such an ambush is not a good sign for markets. If anyone wants to pass along their thoughts on how they feel about being so vigorously protected from blades of grass, wind, and Vinehaven bread, perhaps Wayne Roberts of the Toronto Food Policy Council would pass the message along to the right person: wrobert@toronto.ca