Immunity Support with Herbs – Why Organic Matters
January 14, 2026
By Liz Kowpak, Yorkshire Valley Farms
February 10, 2026 marks the 10th anniversary of Canada’s Agriculture Day, a day intended to celebrate the people and practices that help bring food to the table. Here at Yorkshire Valley Farms (YVF), we’re celebrating our own milestone as we enter our 15th year of bringing high quality organic food to Canadians. It’s given us a chance to reflect upon the important role that agriculture plays in Canada, in our communities, and our very own YVF-ecosystems. As a relatively “new” purveyor of organic poultry, eggs, and most recently beans, the last 15 years for YVF have been a story of relationships, product development, and responsible stewardship as we worked to build a resilient and sustainable business. We wanted to take this opportunity to share some of our learnings along the way, in the hopes that it will help the next generation of organic businesses so we can continue to grow the organic food community here in Canada.
Know your purpose and use it to inform business decisions: In the last five years, we’ve really focused our efforts to make sure that our purpose to “make food matter more” is incorporated into our decision making across the whole business. We have found that identifying a strong purpose and vision to serve as our guiding light has been critical to ground us after challenging conversations, whether retailer meetings, packaging sourcing, employee issues, or environmental considerations. When faced with difficult business decisions, we are able to pause and remind ourselves WHY we are doing what we are doing, and consider how it impacts ALL of our stakeholders.
People-first: The organic system focuses on four principles: principle of health, principle of ecology, principle of fairness, and the principle of care. These principles guide how we produce food, but we also use them to guide how we treat people. The notion of sustaining health, working with natural systems not against them, treating people fairly, and caring for one another influence the way that we work with our farmers, the way that we structure our employee programs, the way that we build partnerships within our supply chain, and even the way that we deal with the end consumer. Our business is built on the idea that we want success to be shared across all stakeholders.
Amazing products speak for themselves: We have found that consumers hold organic products to a higher standard, so we are continuously challenging ourselves to ensure we are raising the bar and living up to those expectations. And, rather than just talking about how great we think our products are, we let the products speak for themselves. Regardless of how many ingredients or steps in the process to make a recipe, quality needs to flow through every step. The ingredients, the cooking methods, the packaging materials, and even the packaging design and artwork, are all ways that we can deliver quality and, hopefully, exceed expectations.
So what’s next for YVF? We are finding new ways to grow within the parameters that we have set for ourselves that keep us honest, integrous, and challenged. We’re committed to building a sustainable business model that will benefit generations to come. As we celebrate #CdnAgDay, we’d like to encourage you to think about what your long-term vision is. If you are a businessperson, what role does agriculture play in your business? As a consumer, what are the myriads of ways that agriculture impacts your lifestyle? We hope that you might think of agriculture in ways you might not have thought of before. When it all comes together, delicious things happen.
About the author
Liz Kowpak is the Senior Director of Marketing & Innovation at Yorkshire Valley Farms (YVF). Over her 9 years with YVF, her work has focused on consumer communication programs, developing new products, and launching a direct-to-consumer frozen delivery platform to help more Canadians gain access to Yorkshire Valley Farms organic poultry.
