Le Mousse Café, a solidarity cooperative, highlights its producer members in a series of exclusive interviews. What is a producer member? It's a supplier who has acquired shares in the cooperative, with whom we have developed a privileged relationship and from whom we get our supplies on a priority basis. The producer member adds value to our social economy enterprise and contributes to its development.



What are the gardens of the center?

First of all, it is a family business where the passion for market gardening is passed on from generation to generation. 

Here at Les Éboulements, with our backs to the mountain and facing the river, we grow different kinds of fruits and vegetables, we prepare delicious spreads using grandmother's recipes...

Stéphanie Pilote took over the business a few years ago: she knows her land well, she develops it, preserves it and continues to pass on the family heritage through her various products but also brings new ideas, which make your mouth water!

The history of the company

Stéphanie Pilote - We have been market gardeners for four generations on our family farm.

At first, it was just a roadside kiosk with a garden.

My parents founded the company in the early 90's when they took over from my great grandfather.

They started to expand, to make preserves, spreads...

I continue on their beautiful momentum since 7 years: we have 25 to 30 different varieties of vegetables and fruits.

Its privileged location

We now cultivate on 25 hectares in a privileged area, both near the mountains that shelter us from the wind and near the river with a rich and varied soil, black soil for our root vegetables, sandy soil for asparagus... this allows us to diversify our crops; we are one of the only places in Charlevoix able to have sweet corn thanks to our location and our particular climate.

We don't have greenhouses, so we do everything semi-direct: we start the season with the gourgana which likes cold soil.

My ancestors' recipes have been revived: fruit ketchup, green ketchup and pumpkin marmalade, which is delicious on ice cream!

Everything is handmade in small batches, with a nice team of about twenty people in high season.

We also pick our own raspberries, cherries, blueberries, blackberries.... facing the river is beautiful.

In the fall we have a multitude of squash and pumpkins, it's worth the detour!

The new projects

We have lots of projects: we planted vines a few years ago to make wine and we also just planted an orchard. Soon we'll be able to pick our own apples and maybe even have a glass of our wine in our hands!

In the summer, we sell our fruits and vegetables on site as well as at the shopping center "le village" in Baie-Saint-Paul, from Wednesday to Saturday and at the public market in La Malbaie, on Saturdays.

In the summer, we make more prepared meals: quiches, pies, gourgaine soup...

In all seasons, we have our jams and marinades that can be found here in the Charlevoix region and especially at Mousse Café.

The mission of the center's gardens

The mission of the center's gardens is to promote local agriculture, to perpetuate the tradition and to make our children discover it.