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Growers’ Circle

June 2, 2025
Foodways

Restaurant Pearl Morissette on Fogo Island 

On May 28, 2025, Fogo Island Inn’s Executive Chef Tim Charles led a growers’ circle at The Storehouse, where Restaurant Pearl Morissette’s culinary team, the growers of Farm on Forest, and visitors and residents of Fogo Island gathered for a conversation around what connects us all: good food.  

Restaurant Pearl Morissette’s Co-Executive Chef Daniel Hadida kick-started the discussion by introducing the Ontario-based, MICHELIN-starred restaurant’s approach to regenerative farming. “We’re a terminus for regenerative practices that includes growers, fishers, and foragers. We represent the public part of that circle.”  

Also present was the restaurant’s resident grower, Shane Harper, who calls himself a “Chef de Farm”. Shane described how his garden serves as another station in the kitchen staffed by “chef-trained gardeners” who focus on cultivating the often-esoteric ingredients featured in the restaurant’s dishes.  

Daniel acknowledged the particularities and privileges of a restaurant surrounded by very nutrient-rich soil — Restaurant Pearl Morissette is located in Ontario’s fertile wine country. In a garden only 300 feet away from the restaurant, the team grows 300 crops. While the conditions appear more arduous in Newfoundland, Farm on Forest’s Tavish Russell and Anja Sajovic drew parallels between their work and Restaurant Pearl Morissette’s.  

Tavish and Anja moved to Newfoundland in 2012 (him from Saskatchewan, her from Slovenia). Struck by the island’s food insecurity and poor quality of imported produce, the duo slowly transformed their home in St. John’s into an urban homestead that could provide high-quality ingredients. Thanks to a lot of experimentation, they now grow around 200-250 crops and supply many chefs, including Chef Tim at Fogo Island Inn.  

“There is a perception that you can only grow five or six crops here,” said Tavish, “We find inspiration in finding more crops that can grow. The exciting thing about growing in Newfoundland is that there is so much opportunity. There was a strong culture of agriculture, and it died off for a period of time, but it’s starting to come back in these small holdings.” 

Anja attributes this return to the influence of restaurants. “Restaurants play a huge role in educating communities on new tastes and new ingredients. If one grower starts growing kale, then shows his neighbour, that’s how you get the ball rolling.” 

This influence is clear on Fogo Island, where Chef Tim and his team have helped introduce crops like kale and fennel to the gardens of local growers who supply the Inn, including Alfred Coffin. Alf was one of the Fogo Island growers who joined the circle, along with Winston Osmond, Al Dwyer, Allan Foley, Neal Buffett, and Alf’s granddaughter, Keiona Brown.  

Fogo Islanders have been growing their own food since long before regenerative farming was adopted by forward-thinking restaurants and chefs.  “Ever since I was strong enough to hold a shovel, I’ve been cultivating the land,” said Al. “I’ve grown everything,” added Winston, “Every seed I could get my hands on.” He shared that they might not benefit from acres of land, like in Ontario or elsewhere, but that there are quarter acres and sheltered areas between rocks. It takes creativity to grow here, and a stubborn streak, and, according to Keiona, a dash of competitiveness.  

“A lot of older people are stuck in their ways,” she said, “My pop said you can’t grow carrots. There was a bit of competition in showing him that you can. If there’s a will, there’s a way. It’s all about mixing the old with the new.” 

Tavish echoed that sentiment. “There is so much to learn from the old ways of growing crops, but now we also have access to information on how people grow things around the world.” 

While the growers’ circle celebrated the progressive impact on growers of culinary destinations like Restaurant Pearl Morissette and Fogo Island Inn, it also showcased the lessons still being learned from our traditional foodways. Daniel and Shane listened intently as Fogo Island’s growers discussed spraying their crops with seawater, which infuses produce with natural salinity. Alf and Winston also explained how they’ve not only used sea plants and kelp to fertilize the soil, but capelin and lobster shells.  

Conversations around foodways between growers from here and away highlight the necessity of a healthy food system. Nourished by locally grown ingredients, a healthy community contributes to the health of the environment and of the economy. These conversations are also crucial to inspire the next generation of growers, like Keiona Brown, who learned from her grandfather and hopes to continue the traditions of growing on Fogo Island. 

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Seaweed Cultivation Around Fogo Island 

May 16, 2025
Foodways

An important part of Shorefast’s work under the banner of Environmental Stewardship is to find new ways to create economic opportunity for our community while relying on the inherent knowledge and geographic assets already in place.  

Growing seaweed is at the core of our current environmental initiatives — it can lead to economic and environmental benefits for Fogo Island. 

Seaweed Pilot Project: Planting Seeds 

Through our Seaweed Pilot Project, Shorefast is leading research and development towards the establishment of seaweed cultivation around Fogo Island. Successful seaweed cultivation in our waters could diversify the local economy and lower the barrier of entry into this form of aquaculture for the fish harvesters of Fogo Island. 

Led by our Environmental Stewardship team, the project is currently a collaboration with the Fogo Island Co-operative Society and Kalup, a start-up on Change Islands and the first independent seaweed nursery to produce seeds in Newfoundland. The Pilot Project was developed with Marine Institute (MI) at Memorial University of Newfoundland and originally funded by the Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation (CCFI). 

In 2024, the team enjoyed their first successful seaweed harvest, an accomplishment made possible by the many Fogo Island fishers and community members who provided their expertise and guidance. 

Looking to more sustainable ways of farming 

On Fogo Island, seaweed has always been used as garden fertilizer. Local gardeners will collect seaweed from Fogo Island’s beaches and lay thick layers atop of the soil. 

Seaweed farming is one of the most sustainable forms of aquaculture. Seaweed can be used as biofuel, fertilizer, and animal feed. As a nutrient-packed ingredient, it can even be served in healthy, plant-based dishes. Most importantly, seaweed can be crucial to preserving the ocean that is essential to the livelihood of many Fogo Islanders. It promotes healthy oceans by: 

 

  • absorbing carbon 
  • improving water quality 
  • combatting ocean acidification 
  • creating habitats for marine life 

Year-Round Farming 

Farming seaweed is a year-round endeavour; our team braves rain, shine, or snow to maintain our crop.  

The wild harvest begins in early fall when we find mature seaweed to use for a nursery. The nursery — an indoor saltwater lab facility — extracts spores from seaweed to grow more plants. Only a few blades are needed to produce up to 40,000 blades of farmed seaweed. Young seaweed seeds grow in the nursery for 4 to 7 weeks. 

In late fall, we “seed” our lines. The seeds grow on a thin line in the nursery where they are monitored for ideal growing conditions (light, temperature and nutrients). Once the spores grow into small seaweed plants ready, we take that line and wrap it around our larger deployment line located in our seaweed plot off the coast of Fogo Island. These small plants are left in the water to grow through winter.  

Farming continues in colder climate. Year-round, our Environmental Stewardship team tests the waters around our seaweed growing area to ensure conditions are right for happy and healthy seaweed. We regularly check water temperature, dissolved oxygen, and salinity — all of which have an impact on aquatic life. We also ensure our gear stays in place through winter storms and turbulent waters. 

Our main growing season runs from early spring to July. That’s when we start measuring growth and monitoring how quickly the seaweed is maturing.  

July is a very exciting time: harvest time! If it’s successful, we spend July to August maintaining the plot for the next growing season until we can extract mature seaweed from our local environment and start all over again. 

The future of seaweed on Fogo Island & beyond 

Through our investment in research and development, we continue to explore and expand on the uses for farmed seaweed beyond its traditional applications. This exploration relies on collaboration, such as our research partnership with Dr. Christina Smeaton at Memorial University, Grenfell Campus. Dr. Smeaton studies the reduction of carbon footprints in agriculture by using seaweed-based fertilizers.  

For more information and updates on our Seaweed Pilot Project, follow us on Instagram and Facebook or contact our Environmental Stewardship team at environment@shorefast.org 

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Food for Thought: Reinforcing our local economy through an appreciation of our foodways

Foodways
May 17, 2023

“Eating is an agricultural act.”

— Wendell Berry, American Farmer, Writer, Philosopher. 

Photo credit: Paddy Barry

Food is so much more than sustenance. What we eat, grow, forage, and fish tells us about the culture, environment, and history of a place. Understanding and celebrating our local foodways is another avenue to build stronger relationships between people and place and reinforce the importance of local growing and sourcing to our economy.

Our newly launched Foodways Program on Fogo Island is designed to unite and build on the many food-related initiatives that have animated our work over the years with the goal of creating a more sustainable food system on Fogo Island that can be a contagious example for other rural and remote communities.

The following is a sampling of some of the past, current, and ongoing initiatives that Shorefast has pursued to support a deeper connection to place through food:

Shorefast and Foodways 

Fogo Island Inn 

Ten years ago, Shorefast opened Fogo Island Inn with the intention to activate the cultural heritage and natural assets of the place, including our local foodways. From the Inn’s kitchen, we brought forward contemporary ways of using local ingredients, broadened what can be grown on the island, and increased the focus on local sourcing to support the creation of a widening food entrepreneur landscape on Fogo Island. 

One such example of a new-to-the-island vegetable is fennel. Having asked local growers to cultivate fennel, initially for use in dishes at the Inn, we see its use within our new restaurant–The Storehouse—as an important gateway to sharing ways to cook with this vegetable, as well as other nutrient-rich ingredients that can be found on Fogo Island.  

Photo credit: Andrea O’Brian 

Fogo Island Fish

After opening the Inn, we also turned our thinking to our primary industry, the fishery, and partnered with the Fogo Island Co-operative Society, which operates three seafood processing plants on the island, to start a micro-enterprise called Fogo Island Fish, designed to develop markets for high quality hand-lined Cod. The practice of handlining involves no by-catch, and while it is labour intensive, we pay fishers double the market rate for cod caught by gill-nets. Fogo Island Fish currently sells wholesale to several fine-dining restaurants across Canada.  

Seaweed Cultivation 


In 2021, Shorefast launched an R&D pilot in collaboration with the Fogo Island Co-Operative Society to explore the commercial viability of seaweed farming. As a sustainable, plant based nutritional food that has significant environmental benefits and economic potential, seaweed cultivation could help diversify our island’s economy, with implications for replicability throughout Atlantic Canada. 

Foraging 


Historically, foraging for wild berries allowed Fogo Islanders to survive in this sub-arctic landscape. People foraged and ate partridgeberries, blueberries, marshberries, and bakeapples. The two dozen or so other berries were, not so long ago, collectively called ‘poison berries’ as a precaution from parents to children. Of course, we now understand a lot more about the berry species we share our landscape with, and that knowledge is often enriched by visiting experts invited by Shorefast who share even more. One such expert was able to expand our understanding not only of the other (not poison but very edible!) berries but also some of the mushrooms and herbs that were never previously understood as food. 

Photo credit: Joe Ip

Medicinal Benefits 


The arrival of Dr. John Weber, a Shorefast academic in-residence and a professor at Memorial University, fondly known as the “Berry Man,” helped us understand that blueberry leaves contain even more antioxidants than the noble berry itself. As we spend more time understanding the rich bounty in front of us, we are re-discovering valuable knowledge.  

Wildflowers 


In 2010, Shorefast commissioned Todd Boland of the Botanical Gardens in St. Johns, NL, to produce a Fogo Island wildflower guide book. The goal was to highlight the wide range of plant life on the island with a particular focus on edibles and traditional uses. This important work laid the foundation to better understand the land under our feet – land that Captain Wadham famously said Newfoundlanders, with their over-focus on the sea, had for too long regarded as a “conveniently-anchored ship.” 

Food Circles 


Adapted from the notion of sharing built into our traditional song circles, Shorefast has been bringing people together to share place-specific growing and cooking learnings and stories. Past panelists include Mitchell Davis, James Beard Foundation, and Lori McCarthy, a long-time Shorefast partner and Newfoundland & Labrador foodways expert.  

Food Circle at Big Space
Mitchell Davis, James Beard Foundation, hosts a food circle on Fogo Island

Learn More about our Foodways Program. 

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