How We Calculate Your Score
Based on Health Canada Dietary Reference Intakes and the Canadian Nutrient File
Measures access and presence of local food sources in the Piknik network — not production volume, tonnage, or whether a community could feed itself at scale.
Find local
How much of Canada's Food Guide plate groups are available from sources you can actually reach
35% of headline score
Get there
How close food access points are from this address — proximity and walkability, not product stock
30% of headline score
Through the year
Year-round plate coverage plus nutrient depth from reachable offerings
35% of headline score
Reachability rule: Your search radius defines where you can access food (farm stands, markets, shops, restaurants, pickup points). Production must be within 100 km of the home. A farm 50 km away only counts if you can reach it through a channel inside your search radius.
Gates: If no local supply is reachable, the score is zero. Seasonal gaps reduce the headline score when plate groups are not available year-round (via the Through the year factor and a separate season multiplier on the headline score).
Official Sources
All data from Health Canada
Official dietary recommendations (PDF - 1.6 MB, 62 pages)
Cat.: H164-231/2019E-PDF
173 nutrients for 5,993 foods consumed in Canada
Science-based nutrient reference values for Canadians
Quick reference: 19 nutrients for 1,100 Canadian foods
ISBN: 978-0-662-48082-2
23 Essential Nutrients
All weighted equally - your body needs every single one
🌾Macronutrients (4)
- • Complete Protein
- • Omega-3 Fatty Acids
- • Complex Carbohydrates
- • Fiber
☀️Fat-Soluble Vitamins (4)
- • Vitamin A
- • Vitamin D*
- • Vitamin E
- • Vitamin K
*Mandatory on Canadian labels
💧Water-Soluble Vitamins (7)
- • Vitamin C
- • Vitamin B12
- • Folate (B9)
- • Thiamin (B1)
- • Riboflavin (B2)
- • Niacin (B3)
- • Vitamin B6
🪨Essential Minerals (5)
- • Calcium*
- • Iron*
- • Potassium*
- • Magnesium
- • Zinc
*Mandatory on Canadian labels
✨Trace Minerals (3)
- • Selenium
- • Copper
- • Iodine
📊How It's Scored
Equal weight: Each nutrient contributes equally to your score
Diversity bonus: Multiple sources per nutrient = higher score
Source: All nutrients from Health Canada's Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) and Canadian Nutrient File 2026
Canada's Food Guide Plate
The foundation for healthy eating in Canada
Vegetables & Fruits
Fill HALF your plate
Key Nutrients:
Examples:
Dark green (broccoli, bok choy), Orange (carrots, sweet potato), Berries, Apples, Tomatoes
Whole Grains
Fill 1/4 of your plate
Key Nutrients:
Examples:
Brown rice, Wild rice, Whole grain bread, Whole oats, Whole grain pasta
Protein Foods
Fill 1/4 of your plate
Key Nutrients:
Examples:
Legumes, Tofu, Nuts, Seeds, Fish, Eggs, Poultry, Meat, Dairy
Make water your drink of choice — Replace sugary drinks with water
Scoring System
How local (35%)
Plate-group breadth from reachable sources: vegetables & fruits, whole grains, and protein foods within your search radius (production ≤ 100 km).
Easy to get (30%)
Proximity to food access points in your search radius (farms, markets, shops, restaurants), with walk-density bonuses. This measures access — how close channels are — not whether a specific product is in stock today (see Walk Score comparison).
- Under 0.25km: 100 points (3 minute walk)
- 1km: 88 points (12 minute walk)
- Bonus: +2-8 points for multiple sources within 1km
The "Ways to buy local" checklist uses stricter verified-channel counts for walkability; the headline Get there factor uses nearby access points broadly.
Covers a diet (35%)
Combines year-round plate coverage (55%) with 23-nutrient depth (45%) from reachable offerings only.
Gates
- Supply gate: zero if no reachable farm, CSA, pickup point, or food business (market, shop, restaurant) in your search radius — even when Piknik has not yet documented their supplier links
- Season gate: multiplier based on year-round plate groups (0–100%)
Source Types Weighted (proximity)
Weights apply to active food businesses within your search radius when calculating proximity:
- Markets: 1.2× (provide variety from multiple vendors)
- Farms: 1.0×
- Restaurants: 0.8×
- Shops: 0.75×
Plate groups and nutrients only count when offerings or farm supplier links are documented; proximity counts the channel itself.
Food Sovereignty Score
Measures community-level food self-sufficiency using Canada's Food Guide plate groups, year-round availability, and infrastructure gaps aligned with national food security policy. Compare Ontario regions →
FAO Four Pillars of Food Security
- Availability — Nutritional variety sub-score (local supply)
- Access — Proximity sub-score (distance to sources)
- Utilization — 23 essential nutrients (Health Canada DRIs)
- Stability — Year-round plate coverage (sovereignty sub-score)
Source: FAO World Food Summit (1996), reaffirmed 2009
Canada's Food Security Strategy (June 2026)
Infrastructure gap indicators in the sovereignty detail are aligned with federal funding priorities — they flag missing infrastructure, not dollar amounts allocated:
- Food Link Fund ($1B) — missing markets / food hubs
- Greenhouse Fund ($700M) — no year-round produce
- Local Production Support — no protein within 8 km
Plate Coverage & Year-Round Stability
Sovereignty scoring uses Canada's Food Guide plate groups: Vegetables & Fruits (50%), Whole Grains (25%), and Protein Foods (25%). This is the 2019 plate model — not the older four-group guide (where milk was separate; dairy now counts under protein). Sources within 100 km count as regional/local; food with no source in that radius is treated as an import. Whole grains require a grain or legume producer — bakeries alone do not count. Year-round coverage recognizes stored preserves and greenhouse fresh produce; seasonal field crops (including root vegetables) do not count as winter-stable on their own.
Fresh winter produce is tracked separately: a greenhouse-tagged producer offering vegetables or greens. The Greenhouse Fund gap appears whenever this is missing — even if all three plate groups have regional sources and import dependency is zero.
Formula: (local plate groups / 3) × 60 + (year-round plate groups / 3) × 40. Sovereignty detail feeds the How local and Covers a diet headline factors — not a separate headline score.
Buying local — ways to buy local
A separate checklist (not part of the main 0–100 score) showing whether practical ways to buy local food exist nearby: direct farm sales, farmers markets, CSA programs, local food shops, and walkable access. This does not track live grocery prices — only whether realistic purchasing pathways exist, which are typically cheaper than supermarket premium "local" sections.
Import Dependency / Tariff Vulnerability
An import is any food that must be brought in from more than 100 km. For each of Canada's Food Guide plate groups (vegetables & fruits, whole grains, protein), we check whether a source exists within 100 km. Groups with no regional source count as import-dependent — exposed to supply disruption and tariff shocks.
What We Exclude
The following are excluded from the Local Food Score calculation:
- Community gardens - Non-commercial, educational purposes
- School gardens - Educational, not reliable food sources
- Food forests - Typically community/educational projects
- Inactive sources - Only active, operating businesses included
Find local and Through the year require documented offerings or farm supplier links for shops and restaurants. Get there and the supply gate also count farms, markets, CSAs, and food businesses physically in your search radius so sparse-map areas are not zeroed out before supplier data is complete.
Like Walk Score — an access index, not an inventory check
Walk Score rates how many everyday destinations you can reach on foot from an address. It does not guarantee that a specific store has your item in stock, that a restaurant has a table tonight, or that you will choose to walk there.
The Local Food Score works the same way: it measures access to local food channels and what the Piknik network documents about their offerings — not live shelf stock, same-day availability, production volume, or whether you can complete a weekly shop from local sources alone. A high Get there score means channels are close; Find local and Through the year still depend on what those channels actually list.
Network Effects & Distance Limits
Restaurants and shops within your search radius that source from farms within 100 km extend what food is reachable from your address — the same reachability rule as direct farm stands and markets.
A restaurant sourcing from 5 local farms makes those 5 farms' products more accessible to residents, even if the farms don't sell directly to consumers.
🔍 100km Maximum Distance Rule
To ensure truly "local" sourcing, supplier farms must be within 100 kilometers of your location to count.
Example: A shop 2 km away sourcing from a farm 50 km away does count — you can reach that food through the shop. A farm 50 km away with no shop, market, or CSA pickup in your search radius does not count, even though the farm is within 100 km.
Limitations
We do not measure food capacity or volume
The Local Food Score and Food Sovereignty sections describe whether local sources exist nearby and which food groups have at least one documented producer — not how much food they produce, how many households they serve, or whether a region is self-sufficient in calories or tonnage. One listed farm per plate group counts as "covered" even if output is small. We do not track CSA share counts filled, acres in production, storage capacity, or wholesale throughput.
- Regional context is a 2021 census structural estimate — not walkable access or current prices (regional data docs)
- Year-round limits affect both the Through the year factor and the season gate multiplier on the headline score — they are not repeated in Find local
- Proximity and walk bonuses measure access to channels, not product availability (see Walk Score comparison)
- Reflects Piknik network coverage — not every local food source in a region
- Assumes equal access regardless of socioeconomic status
- Uses straight-line distance, not actual travel routes
- Does not track caloric/energy density or production volume
- Relies on self-reported data from farms and businesses
- Does not distinguish bioavailability (e.g., heme vs non-heme iron)
Factor labels
- Find local — plate groups from documented reachable offerings (engine: how_local)
- Get there — proximity to nearby food access points (engine: easy_to_get)
- Through the year — year-round coverage plus nutrient depth from listings (engine: covers_diet)
- Ways to buy local — verified channel checklist, not grocery prices (engine: affordability_access)
Regional & Ontario data
Census foodshed layers, farm activity nearby (RCI), food cost context, Ontario leaderboard columns, and StatCan source tables are documented separately — they supplement the score but do not change it.
Regional data & Ontario context →Based on Health Canada's official dietary guidelines
Last updated: June 16, 2026
Questions? Contact us at hello@piknik.spot