Why We're Talking About Sourcing

With cross-border trade and "Buy Canadian" conversations heating up, it felt like the right moment to show our customers how we source. This month we're profiling Vital Green Farms, the Alberta dairy behind the cream and milk in our ganache and truffles, and one of the last independent organic dairy farms left in the province. It's a fitting supplier to start with: Master Chocolat has been made right here in Calgary for over 43 years, since Bernard Callebaut first started making chocolate by hand, and sourcing our dairy from just down the road fits that same made-in-Alberta story.

The History

Vital Green Farms sits just outside Picture Butte, in the county of Lethbridge, in southern Alberta. The farm was started by Joe and Caroline Mans, who began the operation after struggling to find healthy, organic dairy products for their own family. Rather than keep searching, they decided to produce it themselves. Their first dairy cows arrived in 2004, and the farm earned organic certification that same year.

What sets Vital Green apart isn't just the "organic" label, it's how deliberately local the whole operation stays. All of the milk behind their products traces back to a single organic dairy farm in the Picture Butte area, with processing handled close by in the same southern Alberta region. Products are distributed only within Alberta, which keeps food miles low by design, not as a marketing afterthought.

The Product

Vital Green produces a full line of certified organic dairy, whole, 2%, and skim milk, their well-known chocolate milk, buttermilk, kefir, yogurt, cheese and cheese curds, sour cream, cream cheese, crème fraîche, and heavy cream. Because the milk isn't homogenized, cream naturally rises to the top, a small detail that says a lot about how minimally the product is handled before it reaches a kitchen.

Pasteurization happens at the lowest temperature Canadian law allows, which preserves more of the milk's natural character. That comes from an approach Vital Green has held to since day one: feeding the soil with natural amendments, manures, organic molasses, calcium, and liquid fish among them, on the idea that healthier soil makes for healthier cows, and healthier cows make for better milk.

How We Use It at Master Chocolat

Vital Green's heavy cream is what goes into our ganache, the base for the truffles in our boxed chocolates. Because it's non-homogenized and pasteurized at a low temperature, it behaves differently than a standard grocery-shelf cream: it whips and emulsifies with a richness that lets us use less of it for the same silky texture. Their whole milk is a natural fit for our baking sauces and spreads too, where a cleaner, less-processed dairy note lets the cocoa lead.

It also means that when a customer in our café or shop asks where the cream in our truffles comes from, we can give them a real answer: a family-run company and the Alberta processing team that's been part of this business for over twenty years, not an anonymous supply chain.

Supporting Canadian, On Purpose

We source from Vital Green because the product is excellent, but we'd be lying if we said the "Canadian" part didn't matter too. With so much noise right now about cross-border trade and tariffs, keeping our dairy sourcing entirely within Alberta isn't a reaction to any of that; it's a standing choice we're glad is paying off. Every bottle of cream we buy from the Mans family supports a local business and keeps the money in Alberta.

It's a small thing next to bigger trade conversations, but it's the thing we can control: choosing Canadian, on purpose, ingredient by ingredient.

Where to Find Them

Vital Green Farms products are available through a number of Alberta retailers in Calgary, Edmonton, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, and Okotoks.