With thousands of visitors, volunteers, athletes and staff flowing into the Whistler Olympic/Paralympic Park and Whistler Sliding Centre from all over the world, local catering company Whistler Cooks was there to meet all of their culinary cravings, and they brought Pemberton products into the fray with them.

In providing the food and beverage services in these two venues during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, Whistler Cooks has been serving up several menu items that include potatoes, carrots and beets from Pemberton producers Across the Creek Organics, the fourth-generation family farm operated by Bruce and Brenda Miller and sons, and Shaw Creek Farm, run by the Beks family that has been producing seed potatoes for three generations.

Co-owned by Grant and Hilarie Cousar, Whistler Cooks regularly operates the concessions and catering for the day lodge in the Whistler Olympic/Paralympic Park, and won the bid to provide food and beverage services at that venue and the sliding centre for the Games.

Grant Cousar said using local products is important to them – and with such a famous farming valley lying just to the north, you could be certain they were going to draw from that bounty for their Games concessions.

“It’s just what we believe in. We’ve always tried to source local products, looking toward running our business in a more sustainable way,” Cousar said.

Bruce Miller said Whistler Cooks used about 20,000 pounds of potatoes from Across the Creek, which was a “pretty big order.” Whistler Cooks orders regularly from Across the Creek for general business, Miller said, and he appreciated how they went out of their way to include local products in their Games menu.

“They went to a really big effort to use local products,” Miller said.

The catering company’s managers were thinking ahead, he said, and last summer they came around during the growing season to ask about the volume and varieties of spuds that Across the Creek would have available.

They were interested in potatoes suitable for French fries, Miller said, and the popular Kennebec variety. So the Millers set aside a stash of spuds for Whistler Cooks, and last November, those working for the catering company picked up and then prepared the potatoes themselves.

Miller said he initially wondered how the Games would affect his business, as did “a lot of other people.” With major one-off events such as these, he said, producers often need to be involved far in advance; otherwise event organizers will have to turn to wholesalers for the varieties they need.

“In this case, Whistler Cooks was willing to do the research ahead of time and do the processing themselves,” Miller said, adding that not all companies would go to the effort Whistler Cooks did. “It was a nice surprise to have them interested.”

Cousar said it did take some effort to use the local products, but “the reward definitely outweighed the work.” He said the Pemberton produce helped them “put a real premium first-rate product out there that garnered a lot of positive reaction.”

Having known Miller and several Pemberton farmers for a long time, Cousar said, “It was a real treat to be able to bring them to the Olympics with us.”

There’s always an obvious route that can be travelled in product selection, Cousar said, but there were certain areas where the Whistler Cooks’ owners wouldn’t accept the job unless the standards met their level, and “this was one.”

Cousar said the Vancouver Olympic organizing committee officials offered a lot of approval and support for their initiatives such as the sustainable product purchasing.

Whistler Cooks is still on duty through the Paralympics, running the food services for the Nordic venue, but Cousar is ready to say that at this point “we’re comfortable declaring some success” from the Games already.

With such an enormous undertaking, Cousar said, Whistler Cooks could only make plans and hope to do everything right, and found in the end that “most things went exactly as we planned them.” They also managed to pull in a great workforce for their expanded operations, he added, as they brought on a lot of local people and worked outward from there.

At the venues, Cousar said, “People were happy to see there was a local company doing (the food services).”

Miller said Across the Creek also saw that there was “brisk business” during the Olympics through the local grocery stores, and gained exposure through the use of their products at restaurants such as Araxi, Bearfoot Bistro and Zog’s outlets.

Though Cousar was all over the place between the two venues, he got to enjoy some of the classic Olympic moments and terrific level of competition, either by taking time out to watch or stealing glimpses when he could. Most of all, Cousar said, he enjoyed the atmosphere on the beautiful bluebird days, where the venues were full of “people really just taking it in and really enjoying it.”