Follow the Flavours with Feast On®
In a world of multinational restaurant chains and impersonal online experiences, many travellers are looking for local dishes and real-world connections. If you’re among them, you’re in luck! That’s because Ontario is home to Feast On®, one of North America's largest and longest-running certification programs for businesses that raise, make, buy, cook and serve local foods.
The Feast On® website can help you find and visit member businesses, which include restaurants, market vendors, shops, farms, wineries and other food-related companies. With that information, you might find yourself chatting with a farmer at a roadside stand, sampling wines overlooking a vineyard or enjoying a restaurant meal bursting with fresh, local flavours.
“That authentic connection and experience is something people are really craving,” says Tetiana Demkiw, marketing and membership coordinator with the Culinary Tourism Alliance, which runs Feast On®.
Aside from the Feast On® website, there are other ways to find member businesses. Many establishments place Feast On® decals on their doors and windows. Restaurants also receive a certificate that they can frame and display on their premises.
Member restaurants commit to providing information about the sources of their Ontario ingredients on their menus. That, in turn, can help you discover farms you can visit and producers whose foods you can buy—direct from the maker or in Ontario stores.
If you’re curious about a business mentioned on a menu, Demkiw urges you to ask your server, the chef or the owner for more details. Most are happy to tell you about their suppliers. “You might come away with a story you didn’t know,” she says.
There are a lot of stories waiting for you. In 2025, the average proportion of Ontario food on a Feast On® restaurant’s menu was 60 percent (up from 54 percent in 2019). Behind each of those potatoes, eggs, wines, strawberries and pork chops—and many other products—are Ontarians who have worked hard to bring the best foods to your plate.
Feast On® was founded in 2014 and now has more than 170 members, including 20 in South Eastern Ontario. They include wineries in Prince Edward County, Maison Maitland Cooking School and Villas near Brockville and Rampant Kitchen, a private chef and caterer in tiny Elginburg.
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Many Feast On® members are dining establishments. To be certified as a Feast On® business, they must prove that at least 25 percent of the money they spend goes to buy Ontario foods and beverages. Feast On® carefully combs through each certified business’s receipts annually to ensure that members are “walking the walk, not just talking the talk,” says Demkiw. This rigorous auditing process ensures that the certification represents a genuine commitment to local sourcing rather than “local washing.”
Some Feast On® Certified businesses significantly exceed the 25 percent minimum. Demkiw points to Otter Creek Kitchen, a Kingston takeout restaurant, caterer and food truck operator. Otter Creek buys almost 70 percent of its ingredients from makers within a 100-kilometre radius of Kingston, including cheese from Odessa, organic vegetables from Battersea, and soft drinks from Napanee. The beef for Otter Creek’s popular burgers is raised just five kilometres away.
Sourcing local ingredients isn’t always easy. Small producers often have a limited marketing budget, making them hard to find. Some ingredients may be difficult to produce in Ontario’s climate. As a result, when restaurateurs focus on buying locally, they’re committing themselves to a path that will take extra time and effort.
The Culinary Tourism Alliance notes that sourcing locally is a conscious decision that often requires additional time and effort, reflecting the passion and commitment of Feast On® Certified businesses to supporting Ontario’s food economy.
When restaurants don’t spend quite enough in Ontario to meet the criteria for certification, Feast On® offers to help them find Ontario suppliers that can help them meet their needs. That might help the restaurant qualify for certification in the future, but it also helps local farmers prosper. Everyone wins—including consumers, who have more chances to enjoy fresh Ontario foods.
Feast On®’s approach to supporting local food is working. Forty-four businesses joined the Feast On® network in 2025, and more than 200 others from across Ontario are currently going through the certification process.
That has real benefits for Ontario’s economy. In 2025, Feast On® Certified businesses spent almost $39 million with Ontario farmers, artisans and distributors to source locally grown and made products. Every year since Feast On® was founded, that figure has gone up by at least $1 million.
So you can definitely pat yourself on the back for keeping Ontario prosperous when you buy from Feast On® businesses. But the best reason for looking for that Feast On® certification isn’t economic; it’s something far more immediate and personal. Whether you enjoy Ontario foods in a restaurant, at a farmers’ market stall, from a food truck, at a catered event or in your own kitchen, you’ll be able to taste the difference local makes. That’s the bottom line that really matters.
