Food map for Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

What is on this map?

The map above shows farmers’ markets, farms, grocers, bakeries, co-ops and food nonprofits in Ottawa. Restaurants and cafés are not plotted here, and the view is centred on the urban core rather than the full rural municipality. It grew out of our Ottawa guide, and it is one of the city maps collected on the Food Maps hub.

Because the embed is a live query against Food Web's Asset Map, nothing here is a typed count quietly going stale. If a business or a program you know is missing, wrong or closed, you can add or correct it from the map itself — corrections are what keep it worth using.

What do we actually know about markets in Ottawa?

The ByWard Market's own authority says it was established by Lt-Col. John By in 1827; most secondary sources say 1826, so treat the year as the market's claim rather than settled fact. Its outdoor York Street stands run Wednesday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., from May through October. Across town the Ottawa Farmers' Market at Lansdowne runs Sundays 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. from 3 May to 25 October with more than 85 vendors in Aberdeen Square, who may sell only goods produced within 100 km of Ottawa — no resellers.

Farmers' Markets Ontario, established in 1991, represents more than 180 farmers' markets across the province — the closest thing to an authoritative count, since no active national association publishes a Canada-wide one.

For scale, the last census of agriculture found that in 2020 — a pandemic year, so read it as a floor — 25,917 Canadian farms, 13.6% of them, reported selling directly to consumers, and 4,137 named farmers' markets as a channel. On-farm stores, stands, U-pick and farm-gate sales were more common, reported by 15,647 farms.

Do you need a licence to sell food in Ottawa?

Food made and sold only inside Ontario falls under the provincial Food Premises Regulation, and it is the local public health unit — not the province directly — that delivers food premises inspection. The federal line is the clean one: the Canadian Food Inspection Agency says you do not need a Safe Food for Canadians licence to trade food within your own province, only to import, export or send food to a different province. Ontario's cottage-food permissions are not something we could verify from a government source, so confirm those with your public health unit rather than a blog. More in the licensing and permits guides.

Where can you rent kitchen space in Ottawa?

Honestly: not through Food Web yet. The bookable listings in Food Web's kitchen directory are concentrated in Nova Scotia, and there are none in Ottawa today — this page is not going to pretend otherwise. If you run a licensed kitchen in Ottawa that sits idle part of the week, listing it is free, and it will appear on this page as soon as it goes live.

Nearby maps: Guelph, Ontario, Kitchener, Ontario and St. Catharines, Ontario.