Is the honour system alive and well? Caledon farm stand owners talk truth

June 4, 2026 · 0 Comments

By Riley Murphy

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

In 2020, according to the 2021 Census of Agriculture from Statistics Canada, 15,647 farms, or 8.2% of all farms in Canada, reported having an on-site farm stand.

With the warmer weather hitting Caledon, we’re beginning to see more and more pop up on the side of our roads again.

A traditional method for a farm stand includes the products, left out on the stand, with a cash box next to them.

But now, in 2026, is the honour system a sustainable way for farms to continue selling their goods?

These Caledon farm stand owners know the ups and downs themselves.

Danielle Gabriel and Pearly Tailor have run their farm stand at 18355 on the Gore Rd for three consecutive weekends now into the season, and already the two friends have experienced triumphs and tribulations.

The idea to open began in a whirlwind 24 hours. On a Friday night, they agreed on the idea, and by Saturday morning, they were ready and open, with fresh loaves of bread and other assorted baked goods.

After Tailor began making sourdough, she baked numerous loaves, bagels, and more for Gabriel’s son’s birthday, and from there, the two say the seed was planted.

After debating opening a bakery, the two decided a farm stand on their property was a better choice for now.

“It seemed a little overwhelming at first, but then it just happened on its own,” says Gabriel.

The first weekend, the two shared, it was great to see people coming by and picking up products.

But when the second weekend of the stand rolled around, they didn’t have the same experience.

Coming out of the second weekend, Tailor realized they had been short $40.

This farm stand on the Gore Road operates a true honour system – no cameras, just a cash box and an e-transfer link next to all their products.

“The first weekend it was on the dot. We took all the inventory and everything was paid for, and then the second weekend, she’s [Pearly] like, Dani, we’re a good amount short.”

“It broke my heart a little bit because I’m the type of person to believe in the best in people,” says Gabriel. “I wasn’t thinking about using any type of monitoring system and $40, it’s not a crazy, crazy amount, but it’s enough to mess with our morale a little bit in terms of what people are doing. I got a little bit discouraged the day after that, but Pearly brought me back.”

Despite that, the two decided to still open up the following weekend.

Now, they’re working on setting up a camera for the future.

“[We’re] thinking about installing it because a lot of the farm stands here, they don’t follow a complete honour system…most of the farm stands around here follow a midway system where there’s still a camera, there is a box, but the box is attached to the stand,” explains Tailor.

For them, it’s the community in Caledon that keeps them thinking positively.

Gabriel says everyone they’ve been able to meet has been “amazing,” reaching out when they’re a few dollars short in cash to make it up, and ensuring transactions go through, even at times sending extra.

“Especially the moms of Caledon,” adds Gabriel. “They were amazing and supported our business. I posted on a mom’s group and they were so excited and gave us the oomph to get started.”

The two agree that the positive experiences outweigh the negative ones.

“You keep going. That’s it. It won’t stop us from going forward,” says Gabriel. “We meet more wonderful people than we have bad experiences. We haven’t had a face-to-face bad experience yet. It’s just the idea that somebody could be doing this to something you work really hard for. But you have to…either stop or keep going.”

“We don’t think $1 or $2 makes a difference, if you’re walking around, and you don’t have the money, you want to pick up a loaf, it’s fine,” says Tailor. “But then when it comes up to like $40, $50, we’re just like, oh, okay, let’s just recalibrate.”

Another group of farm stand owners know all too well the challenges that come with running a stand, Three Sisters Farm and Flower, which operates its farm stand at 15535 Airport Road in Caledon East.

Three Sisters Farm and Flower is run by the Innis sisters, Mattison, Morgan, and Kendell, and this will be their third season operating their farm stand.

“We wanted to use the extra space on the farm that we have in a meaningful way,” explains Mattison Innis.

They run the stand on their farm, where they are currently the seventh generation of farmers, with their family having farmed that property since the early 1900s.

“We grow flowers, we have bees, we sell the farm fresh eggs, and we share stuff that we genuinely love to get from our property with the community,” she says. “Working in agriculture keeps you very, very busy, so self-serve just makes sense because none of us really have time to sit out there and be able to monitor things.

“So, we decided to give it a shot. It lets our customers stop by on their own time and still lets us share what we’re able to grow and produce here on our property.”

Back when they first opened their stand three seasons ago, Innis says they were nervous and started small with sunflowers.

That first season was very successful, and she says they weren’t short once.

“I was astonished with how busy Caledon is now, you don’t see stuff like that,” she says. “Then the following year, we expanded quite a bit and it had similar results. We have been shorted the odd time, but there’s a lot of good in the community that outshines those more dark moments.”

Over the seasons, their stand has transformed into what you see today, standing in Caledon East, where they have cut flowers and pre-made bouquets, as well as heritage eggs and products from their bees, including honey.

At their stand, they have both a small cash box and a sign for their e-transfer, noting that many people don’t carry cash nowadays.

“It’s definitely shown that when you put energy and effort into something that even when you’re doubtful, it can turn out well,” says Innis.

She says during their first season they were worried that they were “wasting their time” and that it wasn’t going to work.

But, during that very first week, they left a suggestion box out with their Build Your Own Bouquets.

A mother left a note, stating that the stand had made her day and created a memory for her and her son.

“It was a simple little stop at a farm stand and became a meaningful moment to people, which is something that we never expected. But, it’s so encouraging to hear,” says Innis.

She adds they look forward to running their stand for many more seasons to come, “we’ve built our own little community within Caledon that enjoys buying the stuff as much as we enjoy sharing them.”

Innis shares a story she still thinks of to this day when she looks at the Caledon community.

One day, when tallying up their total from their stand, they realized they had been shorted “quite a bit.”

Believing it was a harmless accident, they posted on their social media, asking customers to check whether their e-transfers had gone through or to let them know if there had been any issues.

“Unfortunately, it did seem like we were stolen from. No one ever reached out regarding miscommunication or anything, but what came out of that was we had people from the community that started following us that shared the post,” says Innis.

Numerous community members began sharing the post, encouraging others to go out and support the stand.

Then, a community member reached out to pick up a custom bouquet and some honey. When they left with their order, they also left the exact amount to cover the amount the sisters had been shorted.

“It almost brought me to tears when that happened, because it was just like, wow, there might be the odd bad moments, but if that doesn’t tell you what kind of community Caledon is, then I don’t know.”

“That’s just a good story that shows Caledon’s values.”

Selena Sousa operates her farm stand off her property at 19191 St Andrews Road, and she officially opened just last weekend.

Sousa has sold her farm’s eggs in the past, and when she began selling sourdough to her customers on top of that, they raised the idea of a farmstand.

“I put a feeler post out to see if it was even something that people would be interested in, and it got almost 200 likes,” says Sousa. “Clearly the demand was there. So I thought, why not give it a shot?”

In her opening weekend, her entire stand sold out within 17 minutes, with customers lining up down her driveway.

Offered at Sousa’s stand are sourdough, Danishes, cookies, scones, and her own homegrown jam.

She laughs that someone even left a note in her cashbox that they were looking forward to coming back the following weekend for more jam.

“I try to feed my family the best as possible. I was already making it for my whole household, I just thought, let me increase it a little bit and do it to other people’s houses,” says Sousa.

During her opening weekend, not only was Sousa not short, but she was overpaid.

She says when she posted about opening, many warned her about the possibility of being stolen from.

“I understand that it comes with the territory. I’m putting out an honor system, so if it happens, it happens,” says Sousa. “But everybody paid.”

“They just took what they wanted and left whatever bills they wanted to leave.”

For Sousa, who’s lived in Caledon for eight years, she says she wasn’t surprised to see people sticking by the honour system here in the community.

Even on Sunday, she says she forgot to label the price of her granola, and people went out of their way to message her to ask how much she wanted for it.

“Technically they could have just left whatever or not said anything, but they all took the initiative to make sure that they paid what it was worth,” she says.

She also looks forward to being open for many more weekends.

Despite a few ups and downs, it seems like these farm stand owners are standing side by side with the Caledon community and will continue to operate their stands for many more seasons.