What We Do
Overview
Since 2011, the Toronto Garlic Festival has delivered an annual public cultural food festival in Toronto, bringing together Ontario farmers, chefs, educators, artists, and community partners. The Festival uses Ontario-grown garlic—an ingredient common to cuisines around the world, and here in Toronto—as a practical entry point to explore Canadian agriculture and culture, migration, sustainability, and local economic activity.
The sections below outline the Festival’s work across these areas, with selected examples illustrating how each is realized in practice.
This important event heightens the understanding of the work of Ontario farmers and brings together the fabric of our diverse communities in the Greater Toronto Area to celebrate their use of this staple in the cuisines from around the world. The wonderful opportunities to see this product used in so many different ways does much to connect our common interests and all of us.
I congratulate the organizers who throughout its history have done a great deal to educate those who wish to celebrate garlic and take it to a new level of excellence. This festival brings an eclectic group together: farmers, gardeners, chefs, scientists, health experts, and many others. It is more than it seems."
Why Garlic
Garlic's use in food preparation and medicinal purposes predates the written word. Unlike spices that were hauled along ancient trade routes as rare and expensive commodities, garlic spread through migration and local growing. It is a forgiving crop that can be planted in almost every climate, becoming part of everyday cooking wherever people settled. Its universally appealing flavour profile made it an essential ingredient in virtually every cuisine, from the Napalese dish Spaghetti aglio e olio, to Shiro, a garlic dish originating in northern Ethiopia. Garlic's umami flavour is like the bass line in a piece of music—rarely the focus, but everything else depends on it.
Chef Curt Hospidales, a Toronto-based chef and former vendor at the Toronto Garlic Festival, recalls growing up poor in Trinidad. On the days when his mother did not have enough money to buy meat or fish at the local market, she used garlic. Her method was to cook the garlic until it was taken to the edge of burning, producing a deep, umami intensity comparable to a reduced meat stock. In Hospidale's story, garlic cooked this way was, “the meat in the pot.”
Hospidales’ story was a reality for lower socioeconomic classes through history, and explains in part why garlic was such an important ingredient when there was no meat for the pot.
When families immigrated to Canada, garlic often travelled alongside their most important possessions. Mary Stefura still has the wooden garlic masher her grandmother, Irene Sykos, packed when the family left Ukraine for Canada in 1923.
That it was carefully packed and carried across an ocean—alongside items of spiritual and practical importance—speaks to the role garlic played for this family in sustaining daily life and cultural continuity in a new country.
Tourism and Toronto’s Cultural Diversity
Toronto is one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world, shaped by successive waves of migration and neighbourhoods where many food traditions coexist side by side. The Toronto Garlic Festival acknowledges Toronto’s diversity in an inclusive way—distinct and varied, where cultures coexist, each retaining its own voice.
Visitors are encouraged to participate—by tasting, asking questions, learning techniques, and engaging directly with cooks, farmers, and artisans.
Canadian Agriculture
The Toronto Garlic Festival features farmers participating shoulder-to-shoulder with chefs, caterers, pastry chefs and chocolate makers. Garlic provides a practical entry point for this connection. It is grown by small and mid-scale farmers, stored and planted by hand, and sold directly to the public. In an urban setting, it offers a tangible way to understand how Canadian agriculture functions at a human scale.
At the Garlic Bulb Cracking Contest bulbs are donated by a festival vendor-- farmer Marchand Lamarre. Contestants are judged not only on how quickly they can separate cloves, but on how carefully they do it. The goal is to keep the cloves intact and viable for planting. The cracked bulbs are returned to Farmer Lamarre, to be replanted on his farm in the Kawarthas soon after the Festival.
Reps from Newcomer kitchen help with the garlic harvest at Whole Circle Farm in Acton, Ontario.
Economic Impact
The Toronto Garlic Festival functions as an economic platform as much as a cultural one, creating a low-barrier, high-visibility environment where small businesses can test ideas, reach new audiences, and build momentum.
New products and formats are introduced to the public, refined through immediate feedback, and sometimes launched more broadly as a result.
“I chose garlic from a local small vendor and shared their name on the product.”
— Jaime Anne, Owner, For Good and Twenty (soap)
“Regarding promotion and new business, it’s an opportunity to communicate with other suppliers and customers, share business experience, interests, and supply channels, and collect a lot of useful information.”
— Jolan Zhang, Grill King (food vendor)
“I was sold out early even though I had brought more products. I had direct customers as well as people who were interested in wholesale products. Other vendors would like to use our black garlic for production, and also for business advice.”
— Meng Karbach, Food 4 Life Market Garden (farmer)
Education
Education at the Toronto Garlic Festival operates at multiple levels, ranging from formal curriculum-based learning to informal, experience-driven discovery. Together, these approaches reflect how knowledge about food, agriculture, culture, and sustainability is transmitted in real life—through classrooms, community spaces, and shared public experiences.
Garlic’s familiarity plays a key role. Because it is already part of everyday life, it provides an accessible entry point for learning that feels practical rather than abstract. Education at the festival is not confined to instruction; it emerges through participation, conversation, and context.
These free, 25-minute public talks take place every hour throughout the day and explore food, history, culture, art, and science, often moving well beyond garlic itself while remaining grounded in everyday experience.
Past talks have ranged widely. Speakers have examined how garlic appears in vampire myths and popular culture as a way of understanding fear and folklore; explored the craft of tasting chocolate from bean to bar to discuss flavour, labour, and global trade; and traced the history of garlic in Toronto to reveal how immigration, foodways, and neighbourhoods have shaped the city.
Presented in an open festival setting, Culture Talks invite curiosity, encouraging audiences to make connections across disciplines and cultures.
Donning VR goggles, festival visitors take a 3 minute VR farm tour of an Ontario garlic harvest. This video was produced in partnership with Toronto company Capture Scratch and features Ontario garlic farmer Simon de Boer at his farm near Teeswater, Ontario.
The Ontario Science Centre (OSC) helped to launch the Festival's Garlic Breath Contest, bringing scientific context to a playful activity. Contestants’ breath is measured in the parts per billion (ppb), allowing OSC representatives to turn a fun contest into an opportunity for festival visitors to learn about chemistry, biology, and the human body. As part of the Festival promotion OSC reps were featured on CP24 Breakfast Television.
The Toronto Garlic Festival created Ontario Garlic in the Classroom, a lesson plan that follows the garlic growing cycle across the school year, beginning with autumn planting. Developed in partnership with the Toronto Start and with input from teacher and farmer Shawn Stevens, the program integrates modules in Math, Science, Humanities, and Language Arts. It is designed for grades 3–5 but is easily adapted for other grades.
In the accompanying Student Guide and Teacher’s Guide—students learn about soil, seasonality, food systems, and Ontario agriculture. The program brings students closer to where food comes from, encourages teamwork, explores cultural connections through garlic, and sparks interest in cooking and diet. To see the full guide click here:
Ontario Garlic in the Classroom student booklet (PDF)
In the accompanying Student Guide and Teacher’s Guide—students learn about soil, seasonality, food systems, and Ontario agriculture. The program brings students closer to where food comes from, encourages teamwork, explores cultural connections through garlic, and sparks interest in cooking and diet. To see the full guide click here:
Ontario Garlic in the Classroom student booklet (PDF)
Front cover of the 26 page Ontario Garlic in the Classroom student booklet
Garlic-related talks took place at several library branches in 2024 in a pilot in partnership with the Toronto Public Library. These sessions explored food history, cultural traditions, and urban agriculture, using garlic as a point of entry, inviting the public to engage in an accessible, non-commercial setting. The Toronto Garlic Festival hopes to resume this partnership in 2026, funding permitting.
Sustainability & Waste Reduction
Waste reduction, reuse, and low-impact transportation are built into the Toronto Garlic Festival program, making environmental responsibility visible and participatory. Rather than positioning sustainability as a separate initiative, the festival integrates it into everyday decisions—how people arrive, how food is served, and behaviour that is encouraged on site.
The Toronto Garlic Festival was one of the first major events to partner with Muuse to support the use of reusable dishware by food vendors. This system replaces single-use plates and containers with returnable, professionally washed dishware designed for large public events.
By working directly with vendors, the festival demonstrates that reuse can function at scale in a high-volume, free public festival, reducing waste without compromising food service or visitor experience.
In 2025, the festival partnered with Bike Share Toronto to encourage visitors to arrive by bike. A contest rewarded attendees who cycled to the festival, reinforcing active transportation as a practical and celebrated choice.
Each year, the Toronto Garlic Festival runs its “Don’t Stink & Drive” campaign, encouraging visitors to walk, bike, or take public transit to the festival.
Festival staff actively approach visitors who are spotted using their own take-home containers. As a thank-you, those visitors are rewarded with a small bundle of free garlic.
This turns individual behaviour into a visible and celebrated part of the festival experience.