Food | Ideas
Nérac Specialty Food is a consulting partnership founded by two passionate and experienced culinarians based in Vancouver, Canada & Paris, France. We draw our inspiration and knowledge from these gastronomic terroirs while working to unearth and develop unique place-based tastes and stories that can travel beyond their local contexts.
Our goal is to foster the success of local food artisans and purveyors by working together to Create, Refine and Grow strong & vital local businesses. Let us bring our innovative approach, industry experience and cultural fluency to work for you.
Valton (Val) Landrum, AAS (Associate of Applied Science) is an award-winning culinarian, cheesemaker and educator with expertise in all stages of industry R & D including product research & development, marketing, retail sales and service, restaurant service and education. He has designed and built facilities and developed products for two of North America’s most acclaimed farmstead cheesemaking operations, and his culinary background includes positions in some of Colorado’s top restaurant kitchens as well as an acclaimed food truck. He now divides his time between Vancouver, B.C. and Paris, France where he most recently developed a suite of culinary appreciation classes for the United States Embassy. He is a founding partner of Denver’s Chain Reaction Records, a niche record shop specializing in limited-edition international punk and heavy metal vinyl pressings. He has also been an accredited snowboard instructor. He is an avid mountaineer who has climbed in North and South America and Africa, as well as an aspiring amateur mycologist and sailor.
Contact Val for more info.
Melora Koepke, Ph.D. is a Human Geographer as well as an award-winning and widely published food writer and cultural journalist. She divides her time between Vancouver, Canada and Paris, France, where her scholarly research focuses on cities and urban politics and has worked professionally with several municipalities, community-based organisations and BIAs as an in-house and contract writer and consultant. Her work has been published in numerous local, national and international publications such as National Geographic, the Globe and Mail, The Walrus, enRoute and Fast Company, and broadcast on the CBC and NFB among many others. She grew up on Vancouver’s North Shore and previously lived in Montreal, where she worked for over a decade as an editor and critic at Montreal’s alternative city paper, Hour Magazine (RIP). Her interests include world cinema and literature, municipal politics, immigration and drug policy reform, and supporting spatial and social justice movements in cities. She practises ocean sports such as swimming, SCUBA diving and boating and loves horses, beaches and architecture. Contact Melora for more info.