La Poutine Week facts for kids
Quick facts for kids La Poutine Week |
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| Status | Active |
| Genre | Food festival, food tour and competition |
| Frequency | Annually, 1–7 February |
| Inaugurated | 1 February 2013 |
| Founders |
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| Most recent | 1–7 February 2025 |
| Next event | 1–7 February 2026 |
| Participants | 800 restaurants |
| Attendance | 325,000 |
| Activity | Creating and consuming poutine |
| Organized by | People Mover Technologies |
La Poutine Week is a yearly food festival that celebrates poutine. Poutine is a famous dish from Québec, Canada. It's made with french fries, squeaky cheddar cheese curds, and yummy brown gravy. This dish is loved all over Canada and even in other countries!
La Poutine Week is the biggest poutine festival in the world. More than 700 restaurants take part, serving poutines to over 350,000 people. The festival happens every year from February 1st to 7th. The most recent festival was in February 2025.
Contents
How La Poutine Week Started
La Poutine Week was created by two friends, Na'eem Adam and Thierry Rassam. They are both entrepreneurs. They first came up with the idea after a fun debate about the best hamburger in Montreal. Na'eem Adam wrote about it on his food blog. People loved sharing their opinions!
Building on this excitement, Na'eem and Thierry launched "Le Burger Week" in 2012. It was a festival where people could vote for their favorite burgers. Because it was so successful, they decided to do the same for poutine. They started La Poutine Week in February 2013. They even created a company called People Mover Technologies to organize these popular food festivals.
Why February?
The festival is always held from February 1st to 7th. These dates were chosen to help restaurants. February can be a slow time for businesses, right between New Year's and Valentine's Day. La Poutine Week helps bring in more customers during this quiet period.
How Restaurants Compete
Restaurants that join the festival create a special poutine just for the event. Each poutine costs no more than $10. Restaurants in different cities compete for several awards:
- Favourite Poutine: Decided by people voting online.
- Jury Prize: Chosen by a panel of judges.
- Health Prize: For a healthier poutine option.
- Most Original Poutine: For the most creative idea.
- Most Outrageous Poutine: For the wildest poutine creation.
In 2025, an animal rights group called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) also gave awards for the best vegan poutine. Na'eem Adam said that many restaurants were excited to join the festival.
How the Festival Grew
The first La Poutine Week was held in Montreal in 2013. Only 30 restaurants participated then.
Expanding to More Cities
The festival quickly grew!
- In 2014, it expanded to Quebec City, Ottawa, and Toronto. About 100 restaurants took part that year.
- By 2015, over 120 restaurants joined. Sherbrooke, Quebec, became a new competing city. The festival even went international, with restaurants in Brooklyn, New York, and Wollongong, Australia.
- In 2016, more countries joined, including Argentina, Brazil, England, France, and New Zealand.
- By 2018, the festival included 240 restaurants across nine Canadian cities. New cities like Vancouver, Edmonton, Regina, and Winnipeg were added. That year, Winnipeg had more than 80 restaurants, even more than Montreal!
During the Pandemic
La Poutine Week was able to continue during the COVID-19 pandemic. This was because it's a "decentralized" festival. People don't gather in one big crowd. Instead, they visit different restaurants.
In 2021, a dairy company called Saputo Inc. helped sponsor the event. This meant restaurants paid less to join. A food delivery service, SkipTheDishes, offered free delivery. This was very helpful when people couldn't dine in restaurants. Some restaurants even created special packaging. This allowed customers to build their poutine at home, keeping the ingredients fresh.
In 2021, 700 restaurants across 8 Canadian provinces participated. Montreal took the top spot again with over 120 restaurants. About 350,000 customers took part, making it the world's largest poutine festival. One dollar from each poutine sold was given to charities, like Anorexie et Boulimie Québec (ANEB).
Recent Festivals
For its tenth year, La Poutine Week in 2022 was held for two weeks, from February 1st to 14th. This longer time allowed people to try even more poutines. This two-week format continued in 2023. In 2024, the festival returned to its one-week format. That year, over 800 restaurants participated! The most recent festival was in February 2025.
Creative Poutine Dishes
Restaurants are free to invent any kind of poutine for the festival. Na'eem Adam noted that in Montreal, the most popular poutines are those that perfect the classic ingredients: french fries, cheddar cheese curds, and brown gravy. However, in other places, chefs often like to reinvent the dish.
Some chefs get creative by combining different carbs, cheeses, and sauces. Others go even further, using solid, semi-solid, and liquid elements in new ways. Many restaurants create fusion poutines, mixing poutine with other types of food. You can often find vegetarian, breakfast, and even dessert poutines during the festival!
Watson's Poutine Ideas
In 2015, an IBM supercomputer named Watson helped chefs create five new poutines. These were offered for free taste-testing during La Poutine Week in Toronto and Montreal. Watson analyzed information about the cities and popular foods. It used a huge database of recipes to suggest unique food pairings for each city.
Impact of the Festival
La Poutine Week helps restaurants a lot. It boosts their sales and helps them stay busy, especially during slower times of the year. The festival also makes people happy and can even help restaurants hire more staff to meet the higher demand. Organizers have said that some restaurants have their best sales week during the festival. Dairies also sell more cheese curds and increase their production before the festival starts.
While celebrating poutine, organizers also remind people that it's not an everyday food. They give awards for the Healthiest Poutine. They also offer prizes like gym memberships to people who vote. Funds from the festival are donated to health-related charities.
The success of La Poutine Week and Le Burger Week led to a new festival: Le Pizza Week. It started in May 2021. Organizers had thought about a pizza festival before. But during the pandemic, many restaurants asked for it, showing there was a real demand.
