Who we are
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Five years ago, Cole saw an opportunity to promote Canadian artisan cheese. The operation started with one man and one cheese, but has expanded far beyond there. As president of Provincial Fine Foods, he has set a course to make Canadian artisan cheese a way of life in our country through education and awareness. Working closely with Canada's top chefs, cheesemakers, and cheese sellers; Cole has grown Provincial Fine Foods to become one of Canada's largest distributors of Canadian artisan cheese.
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Allison studied sociology at the University of Western Ontario, and soon developed an interest in the world around her, with a strong desire to travel and learn about different cultures. However, travel requires money so a part-time job at a golf and country club led to a full-time job a food and beverage manager. While spending a lot of time in the kitchen, her interest in food began. Allison knew she wanted to pursue food interests, and after an eight year career in the pharmaceutical world, she had the opportunity to fulfill her life-long dream of going to chef school. She and her husband spend as much time as possible traveling the world so they can experience different cultures and culinary pleasures.
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Daryl's dedication to food began in his parents' backyard and his grandfather's garden. Somewhere between the vegetable patch and the chicken coop he learned about the connection between food, family, and the right way to eat and live. After toiling in the corn and soybean fields of Lambton county as a young man, he worked in restaurants while in university and there made the decision to go to chef school and truly pursue his love of food. His decade long journey in restaurants and kitchens took him to hotels, wine bars, and finally to Grace restaurant as sous chef, where he strived to bring Ontario farm fields to toronto tables, and showcase the fine cheeses made in our country. Since joining Provincial Fine Foods in January of 2009, Daryl is proud to add the title of cheesemonger to his list of accomplishments, and works tirelessly to promote the virtues of Canadian artisanal cheese!
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Steven Bonin has been with the company since February 2008. After completing his bachelor of science in environmental studies at McMaster, he moved on to pursue his true passion - cooking. A graduate of the Niagara-on-the-Lake culinary school, Steven worked in and ran kitchens all over southern Ontario for close to eight years. It was only when he left the kitchen that he discovered his true calling. Steve moved to Vancouver and got a job at Les Amis du Fromage (the busiest and best cheese shop in the city), where he saw how big the world of cheese really is and developed his passion for everything cheese.
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Lauren, originally from Calgary and spending most of her childhood in Montreal, moved to Ontario in 1995. Her first taste of cheese was parmesan on linguine when she was two. After completing her Bachelor of Commerce at McGill university in 2006, Lauren spent two years working in marketing and communications for an environmental non-profit organization. Ultimately, her passion for food drove her back to school to complete the culinary program at George Brown College. Lauren now divides her time between extreme cheese mongering and food writing.
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Jon's fascination with cheese began while working as a chef at Tati Bistro. He was amazed that each cheese had a different aroma, texture and taste, and were all made from the same humble ingredient, milk. The questions he had, no cheese book could answer. So to make all his friends jealous, he traveled abroad and lived on two small farms in France learning cheesemaking methods and techniques, as well as the way of life on the farm. The first farm was close to the town of Niort in Poitou-Charentes and made small format goat cheeses; the second farm was in Lamastre, Rhône-Alpes region, and made large alpine cheeses. Back in Canada, he was delighted to find amazing Canadian cheeses. Jon is excited to share the fascinating stories of cheese each day at the Church Street store.
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Keir’s interest in food started when he was 10 years old with his first vegetable garden,on a small island in the St Lawrence. Keir attended Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA for business management, after 3 years he decided to pursue his passion, and enroll in the le Cordon Bleu culinary institute. For three years after graduation, his culinary calling took him to Florida, back home to Toronto to work for renowned chef Susur Lee, and then to Melbourne, Australia. In every place he went, a commitment to the freshest and most local ingredients was Keir’s continuing motivation. It was in the Toronto interlude of his cooking adventures where Keir met Cole Snell, owner of Provincial Fine Foods, Inc. and would pick Cole’s brain with numerous cheese questions on his days off. Never quite forgetting the seductive lure of Canadian artisanal cheese, Keir left Australia after a year and returned to Toronto to work for Provincial Fine Foods, and cheesemonger his heart out!
Joshua Wood
I was born in Toronto. However, when I was six my family moved to British Columbia to start Salt Spring Island Cheese. I grew up on the island and my first job as a kid was milking sheep so as the milk could be turned into small production artisan cheese and yogurt. I learned to make cheese, and gained an appreciation for small food production. After finishing University, I found that I wanted to direct my energies towards cheese again. I moved back to Toronto to learn about the retail side of the cheese business. I work at About Cheese, the store, and tour the best of Toronto’s fine food stores sampling Salt Spring Island Cheese. I regularly return home to make cheese on the family farm, and see my border collies.
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Jamie Drummond began his career in Edinburgh at Chef Andrew Radford's Michelin Guide-recognized Atrium restaurant while he studied with the United Kingdom's Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET). In 1997, he emigrated to Canada and began working as sommelier at Toronto's Granite Club. In 2004, he was hired by Jamie Kennedy to select and purchase wines for Kennedy's restauarants. In addition to this, Jamie D. judged wine at an international level, presented a bi-weekly wine podcast, wrote for a number of publications on a wild variety of topics, led numerous public education sessions, and created an irreverent wine blog. Currently he is aboutcheese.ca's sommelier, and is the director of programs for the Toronto website Good Food Revelation.
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Andy is a native of Ithaca, N.Y., who began his retail food career in New York City with Eli Zabar and the Gourmet Garage. Andy then managed the David Jones Food Hall in Sydney, Australia. Next he and his wife, Meredith, moved to her hometown, Toronto, and opened their own food store, Shay Gourmet. Andy started and ran Shay Cheese, Canada's first online artisan cheese club. Today, Andy is a director of the Ontario Cheese Society, writes for Good Food Revelation, teaches at George Brown College and develops special projects for Provincial Fine Foods.
