Local food systems programs in Canada's rural and remote communities support residents to improve their access to healthy food by strengthening various social practices within the system. Designing programs to strengthen social practices can help address food insecurity by providing a support structure where people can build competencies and access materials necessary to engage in practices like food preservation, and make meanings that will encourage them to sustain their engagement. The elements needed for successfully establishing a social practice–competencies, materials, and meanings–must be present. Unfortunately, food preservation programs in Canada's local food systems have not fully embedded structures to bring all three elements of social practice together or undertake a participant-focused program assessment. Consequently, we do not know the potential of local food preservation to meet peoples' various needs or the challenges that program participants experience practicing food preservation. This paper uses a social practice framework to determine the extent to which a community food preservation program on Canada's west coast strengthened the three elements of social practice. Findings from interviews show that in line with the paper's three objectives, participants of a community train-the-trainer program (1) built and shared food preservation competencies, (2) accessed materials to practice food preservation, and (3) formed meanings to support their continuous engagement in food preservation. The paper shows how a social practice framework can support a participant-focused program evaluation and provide a practical and straightforward tool for assessing food systems programs.

Youth in remote communities of Canada, including those in the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Region (CSUBR), can benefit from building food preservation knowledge because of the additional challenges they experience accessing healthy food. Regrettably, youth in these areas are not adequately engaged in food practices within households that support knowledge building. Schools and community food programs that serve to fill such learning gaps lack food preservation content and are developed without input from youth. Consequently, youth in remote areas, including those in the CSUBR, lack food preservation learning opportunities. To address these gaps, we examine youth participation in food preservation in the CSUBR. We adopted a participatory approach to emphasize youth perspectives. This paper is based on interviews, food preservation workshops, and workshop evaluations with youth. The interviews provided multiple perspectives, including current youth engagement in food preservation activities and factors that hinder or motivate youth participation in food preservation. In addition, we organized food preservation workshops to support youth learning goals. These workshops were evaluated to highlight participants' experiences, including their efficacy in supporting food preservation knowledge building. Findings show that youth are not adequately participating in food preservation compared to other food provisioning activities. Factors such as the lack of teachers hinder youth from participating in food preservation. The workshops supported youth in building various food preservation techniques and learning about the cultural importance of food – important skills and knowledge to support youth food security and their community's food sovereignty.