Another food festival in Saskatoon is a casualty of inflation.
Ribfest, which is put on by the Rotary Club of Saskatoon Nutana as a fundraiser for the new St. Frances Cree Bilingual School, has been confirmed cancelled by the club.
“Unfortunately The Rotary Club of Saskatoon Nutana will not be hosting Ribfest again this year. Last year we cancelled the event due to the fact our Ribbers were unable to be back in Saskatoon for the August long weekend and we were unwilling to risk changing the date,” read a statement Global News received from the club.
The club says the event faced a number of other hurdles, with rising costs being one of them.
“As you may know we first cancelled Ribfest in 2020 due to COVID-19, and in 2021 held a drive-thru Ribfest. As the organizer of the event, it has become a huge undertaking to find sufficient volunteers to cover the full three-day event. With the rising cost of food prices, high upfront costs of organizing the event, being reliant upon good weather and risk of actually losing money on a fundraising event, the club has decided we will not continue with Ribfest.”
It added that this is one of the club’s major fundraising events, but they continue to raise money elsewhere and are still able to fulfil this year’s commitment of $20,000 to the new school, as well as the other causes they support in the community.
Rob Reinhardt is the owner of Prairie Smoke and Spice BBQ, a food truck and catering business based in Regina that also takes part in festivals across Canada throughout the summer like Ribfest.
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He said they lost some business back in 2020 with the pandemic shutdown, but have been going to these festivals every year since.
“In 2021 we were able to execute a drive-thru style Ribfest in a number of communities including Regina and Saskatoon,” Reinhardt said.
“In 2022, last year, was the first year we went back to full-scale outdoor festivals, and we experienced record crowds in virtually every city we went out to. People were anxious to come back and enjoy our food.”
Reinhardt said BBQ brings people together.
“It’s the one cuisine that people rally around. It’s a social event, right? People want to go to a BBQ, they may not necessarily always want to go to a spaghetti festival.”
He said he was sad to find out Ribfest in Saskatoon won’t be running.
Reinhardt said inflationary pressures have been an issue for these festivals for the past two years, giving an example of a festival in Victoria, B.C., learning that porta-potty rentals were twice as much as they had been in 2019.
He noted that doesn’t seem to be affecting turnout to these events, though.
“Maybe pressures are such that people are cancelling vacations and spending their money at home, which is where these hometown Ribfests come into play.”
He said his costs have gone up and they’ve had to raise their menu prices, but he can’t recall more than one or two negative comments about their pricing.
“People understand, people just want to get out and enjoy the festival atmosphere and enjoy the food.”
Reinhardt said he’d like to see the event come back to Saskatoon, adding that they’d be open to another organization putting on a similar event.
“We always found patrons were really excited about the event, and we sold a fair amount of food there. (It) definitely ranks among probably our number one event in the Canadian prairies.”
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