A John Deere Publication

A smiling gardener standing in a field of carrot plants with small multi-colored carrots in their hand

Virginie Lagrandeur jumped at a chance to work in the market garden at Le Germain Charlevoix Hotel. She enjoyed it so much she went back to school to get the training she needed to manage the hotel's farm operations.

Agriculture, Specialty/Niche April 01, 2025

As Fresh as it Gets

Luxury Charlevoix hotel establishes its own farm.

by Lorne McClinton

The kitchen at Restaurant Les Labours in Le Germain Charlevoix Hotel and Spa in Baie-St-Paul, Quebec, smells divine. The scent of roasting squash and fresh herbs fills the air. They look great as they're pulled from the oven for the evening's entrée. Little wonder that they're as fresh as it gets, they were just picked from the farm on the hotel grounds a few hours earlier.

Many restaurants across Canada and the United States offer a farm-to-table menu. They source seasonal produce and fresh meat from farms and farmers' markets in their region. Les Labours is one of a growing number though who are taking the concept a step further. They've established farms of their own and will employ a team of farmers on their payroll to produce food for them.

Farmer wanted. Virginie Lagrandeur never imagined she would one day be running a farm when she took a receptionist job at the spa at the 145-room hotel in 2018. She'd studied business administration and sustainable development in college but she'd always been passionate about gardening. So, when she heard the hotel had a position available in their market garden, she jumped at it.

"I enjoyed it so much that I decided to get serious about it," Lagrandeur says. "I went back to school to take a course in organic market gardening in Victoriaville [Quebec]. Today I run the farm operations at the hotel with the help of two employees."

Her administration background helped a lot with the planning side of farm operations. Over the winter months she works closely with the hotel's executive chef, Patrick Dubé, to plan what crops they are going to produce, which varieties and what quantities they'll need. The hotel's goal is to use the produce their farm grows to help Les Labours become the best restaurant in Charlevoix.

The hotel is far too big for its small farm to supply all their food needs, but Lagrandeur says it does provide more than 40 varieties of in-season vegetables, as well as a variety of small fruit for the kitchen. They also grow a constant variety of microgreens and maintain a large herb garden with about 20 different varieties of herbs and edible flowers. There's also a separate flower garden that supplies the bouquets found throughout the hotel.

"We're located in Charlevoix, so we do have a short growing season," Lagrandeur says. "My farm team arrives in mid-April when we start planting in our greenhouses. We'll harvest our last crops at the end of November."

Above. Lagrandeur and her staff grow 40 different types of vegetables and a large herb garden to supply the hotel's kitchen. They also maintain a large flower garden to supply flowers for bouquets throughout the hotel.

Long history. The site of Le Germain Charlevoix Hotel has a long agricultural history that dates back to 1891 when the sisters of Les Petites Franciscaines de Marie established a farm on the property. This evolved into the Filbaie Farm, a dairy farm that boasted the largest wooden barn in Canada until it was destroyed by a fire in 2007. As an homage to this history, it was originally known as the Hôtel La Ferme when it opened in 2012. Lagrandeur said there was a plan to have a small farm on the hotel grounds right from the start.

Today guests can stroll by the herb and flower gardens or sit on their balcony and watch the hotel's 20-cow herd of Highland cattle, sheep, and ducks that provide some of the restaurant's meat requirements from their room's balcony. There are also a few alpacas and chickens on site to round out the farm experience. This means though that Lagrandeur and her staff will be constantly surrounded by hotel guests as they go through their work day.

"We see a lot of people over the course of a day throughout the summer months," Lagrandeur says. "Guests will stop us and ask questions about what varieties of plants we're growing and what tools we are using and so on. People rarely get a chance to visit a farm these days, so we take this educational aspect of what we're doing very seriously. Besides, I really enjoy it. It's what makes the job so different from what we'd experience if we were doing this anywhere else." ‡