Saturday Farmers’ Market Vendor Feature: The Corn Shack
This week we are featuring a first-year vendor at our market, The Corn Shack! The Corn Shack provides fresh-picked Chilliwack sweet corn to people all over the lower mainland. We recently had the pleasure of chatting with co-owner Aaron Gibbons to find out more.
How long has The Corn Shack been around? How did you get started?
The Corn Shack has be around for 10 years. My uncle has been farming in the valley for many years. We decided quite a few years ago to start expanding into some of the farm markets when they gained popularity as we found it a great way to meet customers who shared the same passion for local great food that we did.
What are the three most important things you think people should know about the Corn Shack?
- We pick our corn the morning of or sometimes the night before our markets to make sure our customers get the freshest product possible.
- All of our corn is hand-picked so it’s not damaged and gets sorted thru right in the field.
- If our corn has become too ripe we won’t pick it period! Sweet corn has a very fine line of being sweet and juicy or starchy and chewy. If it’s not up to par for us it won’t be at the markets only the best is acceptable to us.
What is your favourite corn-based recipe?
Well this might not be a recipe but I would challenge anyone reading this who bought corn from us to eat a cob raw (not kidding). I seriously eat one just about everyone morning as a tester, people think it is pretty weird but I promise its delicious and it’s something that people just don’t think about eating raw even though we eat just about every other vegetable raw why not corn. Cutting the kernels off the cob raw and putting them in a salad is really good too. My wife makes really good basil and chili flake butter, you just finely chop up the basil and mix the butter with chili flakes, it’s super tasty.
You mention keeping, your carbon footprint low what are some ways you encorporate this in your practices?
Sourcing any food product locally is so important to us. Not trucking something in from thousands of kilometres away when it can be brought in from the valley is critical to everyone.
Why did you choose to come to the UBC Saturday Market specifically?
We really wanted to push further west this year into some of the Vancouver markets. It is a bit of a challenge due to distance and making sure we keep our corn fresh and sweet. But we felt it was worth the challenge because I’m sure there are a lot of customers at these markets that will love this product.
Where else can customers find you?
The Corn Shack has three stands that are all open 7 days a week in Surrey as well as many of farm markets in the lower mainland including White Rock Farm Market, Main St Market, Coquitlam Market, New West Farm Market, Ladner Village Market. People can find more details on our Facebook page @TheCornShack
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