Ontario’s Best Butter Tart Festival brings sweet success to Midland

Downtown Midland was filled with the smell of sweet nostalgia as Ontario’s Best Butter Tart Festival returned on Saturday.

The beloved annual event, now in its twelfth year, celebrated one of Canada’s most iconic pastries, drawing bakers, vendors, and tens of thousands of tart lovers.

The festival, which began in 2013, quickly became a local sensation, famously selling out 10,000 tarts before 11 a.m. in its first year. Since then, it has grown to become the largest butter tart festival in Canada.

“We have somewhere around 60,000 people in our town of 18,000 and hundreds of thousands of butter tarts being sold; all different varieties,” shared Bill Gordon, the Mayor of Midland, to CTV News.

The festival took over Midland’s core, stretching between Yonge Street and Bayshore Drive, and into Harbourside and David Onley parks.

“We are a beautiful community right on the Georgian Bay waterfront. We still have that small-town charm and feel, and we have a beautifully redone downtown with all kinds of amazing vendors,” continued Mayor Gordon.

New this year, Canada’s largest independent ice cream maker, Chapman’s, signed on as presenting sponsor marking a sweet partnership that combined two iconic Canadian treats.

“We heard about this event for a while. It is such a popular initiative that people from around Ontario come here. So, when we decided to launch this flavor, we thought it would be a perfect combination and perfect partnership,” said Lesya Chapman, marketing manager at Chapman’s Ice Cream.

Their new ice cream is quite the treat. “This year we launched our butter tart ice cream. It’s just going out into stores. It’s in stores across Canada, and we are very excited to share it with people,” Chapman added.

Vendors from all over the region flooded the streets, selling their most iconic pastries. Tina Hatton, owner of Sweetie Pie in Toronto, spent her third year at the festival.

“This is our third year. We only opened Sweetie Pie five years ago—we started in 2020. My husband is a huge butter tart fan and he heard about the butter tart festival. He was like, ‘We should go.’ So we started going the first year, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, we should do this.’”

There were loads of flavors including; plain, raisin, pecan, walnut, skor, maple, bacon, coconut, chocolate covered, PB&J, s’mores, gluten-free, vegan, nut-free, cheesecake, pumpkin... and many more.

This event was more than a celebration of Canadian baking, it was an economic engine for the Town of Midland.

According to town officials, the festival is expected to generate between $2 to $4 million, with more than 300,000 unique butter tarts being sold across the event.