A note from coordinator, Lorna Reid:

At the last G2G meeting concern was expressed about the VIHA food inspectors not allowing other groups to sell their preserves to the public. This has now been thoroughly checked out and samples have been sent to a lab in Sydney for PH testing to ensure that we are meeting the safety regulations. I am confident that we will meet the standards and so I would like to encourage Grannies to continue to donate preserves for our table at the Extravaganza.I just recently received the results of the testing on 10 of our products – we are well within the 4.6 limit for all of them!
I think we can all apply common sense to making preserves and use the “Guidelines for Food Preparation at Temporary Markets” from the BC Centre for Disease Control available on the internet if in doubt. For example we can only sell “low-risk” products such as jams, jellies, relishes, chutneys and pickles with a low PH score – this covers most home-made preserves but not things like pickled beans and asparagus, mixes with a lot of tomatoes, pesto or garlic spread, herb and flavoured oils and garlic spread etc.
Please makes sure that your jars are properly sealed and labeled with the name of the product and the ingredients. The regulations require that they be processed in a water bath – please do so even if your recipe does not require it. We are expanding to two tables so we need lots of selection.

Thank you,

Lorna Reid

Posted by,

Carol Lundine

Communications