Soul Bite Food is very special organization that we are so lucky to have in our Pomme community. You might recognize them from our aisles in the form of incredibly delicious vegan comfort foods based on recipes from Eastern Europe and the Middle East. But the story behind Soul Bite Food is as awesome as their creations. They began as a local Tri-Cities charity dedicated to fighting hunger and combating food waste, by redistributing viable food at risk of going to waste to families experiencing food insecurities. After five years of relying on volunteer hours and paying for various expenses out of pocket, they decided to create a social enterprise that would support their work. Using traditional recipes from their own families and communities, they developed their amazing retail line of appetizers, and the profits from these award winning products help them continue their incredibly important work. We’re really grateful co-founder Igor Bjelac found some time to answer our Meet The Maker interview questions this month.

From the UK to BC! Born in London, Parma Vik has had a really exciting and varied culinary career that has included working for the likes of no less than Jamie Oliver! Soon after relocating to Canada in 2013, he began working on Jann Foods, his own company designed to focus on clean eating. Jaan Foods' first product is an incredibly delicious plant-based butter chicken sauce based on family recipe: Parma's Butterless Chickenless Sauce. It's been super popular with our customers (and staff!) and we're so happy we get to share a little of Parma's story and personality with you. And we can't wait to try whatever fab creations Jaan Foods offers next!

We’re really excited to introduce you to Beth Campbell, of Viva Cacao! Based in the Slocan Valley, Beth’s approach to creating fabulous, ethical chocolate bars, barks, and drinking chocolates is to treat cacao like the superfood that it is—and combine it with more superfoods! She also uses super sustainable coconut sugar, or lucuma, as sweeteners. With keto, plant-based, and dairy free options, there’s something perfect and deeply nourishing for all dietary preferences, and her products come in incredible flavours, like Vegan Chai with Reishi, Raspberry and Camu Camu, and Coffee and Cardamom. As with so many of our awesome local makers, Beth started off in her own kitchen with some ideas, a willingness experiment, and a whole lot of determination. Read on to learn more about how her wonderful small business developed.

Charmaine Ng developed her Love Me Some line of keto, plant-based, non-gmo crackers using her Masters of Food Science from the University of British Columbia when her growing family drove home how important it is to balance convenience with real nutrition. Her made-in-Vancouver products are based on using the benefits of super seeds to help support our immune systems and natural cycles. These crackers are a delicious snack food with a fantastic nutritional profile designed to fuel humans of all ages—in as much time as it takes to dip your hand into a box! That said, they're also amazing with all kinds of toppings and spreads, and make a beautiful addition to snack and appetizer boards. We’re really grateful to Charmaine for sharing some insight into how her small business developed!

We love a good “side-hustle-to-successful-independent-business” story! Christine Yee’s certified gluten-free dumplings have pretty much achieved cult status in the coastal BC region. Available in four flavours—including two vegan options, Golden Dumplings and Jade Dumplings—her premium product draws on and honours her family culinary tradition. Equally amazing for both a quick, healthy snack or a big, beautiful dinner with friends and family, the care she puts into creating them definitely shows in their quality and deliciousness! We’re really glad Christine was able to find some time to answer our Mini Interview questions so you can get to know her a bit, and get little peek into the life of another awesome local maker in our community.

From making personal deliveries on one local block using a little red wagon, to now having distribution throughout Western Canada, Sabrina and Kristin of Squamish Water Kefir have turned their passion for probiotics into a fabulous and well-loved range of water kefir-based products. We're super happy they found time to chat with us about how it all got started, their daily motivations and breakfast favs, and, as always, some top tips for feeling awesome.

Omega 3 Nutracleanse is brought to you by Sunshine Coast-based entrepreneur sisters, Melanie, Teresa, and Dina. Their “O3NC” blend brings together five simple ingredients: Ground Flaxseed, Psyllium Husk, Fenugreek Seed Powder, Dandelion Root Powder & Burdock Root Powder. This combination provides an awesome amount of fibre and tons of digestion friendly nutrients.

One of the many things we love so much about our community of small local makers, is how their products and their businesses are so truly personal for them. Their motivation for creating something new and wonderful is always clearly driven by a real desire to improve the health and wellness of their family, friends, and community, and to create a product that the people around them will truly love.

We love being able to provide access to truly delicious, top quality foods for those of you who are on specialised diets—foods that are so good everyone wants to eat them no matter what kind of diet they are following. Wendel’s True Foods is another West Coast classic, another homegrown trailblazer in this area. Their gluten-free baked goods have been a godsend for celiacs and a beloved treat for all since 2005, and we’ve always felt like they are extra important at this time of year when everyone is indulging and sharing goodies, because they help make sure no one has to feel left out or stuck with second rate treats! Wendel’s True Foods founder Diane Morrison answered our Meet The Maker questions for December, sharing the touching inspiration for the business, and a little slice of her life in Fort Langley.

We’re really thrilled to have the opportunity to interview Clinical Herbalist Angela Willard, co-visionary of the much beloved local botanical dispensary, Harmonic Arts. Founded in Cumberland, BC in 2008 by Angela and husband Master Herbalist Yarrow Willard, Harmonic Arts brought a super high quality selection of expertly-blended herbs and medicinal mushrooms to the small island community. Word spread fast, and so did their fledgling business! Today Harmonic Arts’ premium tinctures, elixirs, teas and blends, many of which feature wild, locally foraged ingredients, are available throughout Canada and we feel so lucky to have them right in our beautiful forested back yard.

This Meet The Maker Mini Interview is for the moms—and everyone else who loves having a super nourishing, simple and really delicious snack on hand! Lilian Umurungi-Jung was inspired to create her line of top quality, wonderfully flavour blended nut butters when she found herself struggling to find quick, nutritious snacks during her pregnancy. Now loved by her son, her mom, and legions of loyal fans, Mumgry can be spread on breads, fruits, used in breakfast bowls and smoothies, or just eaten by the very tasty spoonful! It’s so nice to have the opportunity to introduce you to Lilian so you can learn a little about who she is, and the values she puts into her independent business.

This month for our Meet The Maker Mini Interview we’re talking to Lyndsay Scott, founder of Kindred Cultures. Lindsay developed her amazing probiotic-packed, delicious, and wonderfully, naturally colourful water kefirs to help her young son’s skin successfully recover from eczema. We’re thrilled to have these delicious and beautiful beverages in our coolers at Pomme so you can benefit from their refreshing, health-boosting properties too, and we’re really happy to be able to give you a chance to learn a little more about Lindsay!

There's been such amazing innovation in plant-based foods over recent years, and we're so lucky to have tons of it happening in our own backyard. Vancouver-based TMRW Foods makes awesome, grill-ready, plant-based burgers as well as a super versatile mince that can be used for anything from lasagne to tacos to meatballs! And they are sooo tasty. TMRW Foods’ approach to plant-based meats is focussed on crafting "satisfying and nutritionally optimal products that are made from as many whole foods as possible", while centring the well-being of their employees, communities, and the environment. Sustainability is a big part of their business model. As we move into summer—otherwise known as ‘barbeque season!’—we’re excited to have company founder and Dean Blignaut answer our latest Meet The Maker Mini Interview questions!

It’s been amazing to see so many incredibly healthy, delicious products for specialized diets come to market over recent years, and Okanagan Rawsome has been some of the pack leaders. Crisp creator and company founder Afke Zonderland started developing her raw, sprouted, gluten-free crisps in 2008 and over the past decade, working with her daughter Ana, Afke has maintained her commitment to sourcing the organic produce used in her crisps from her own and local farms, to help support her community socially, economically, and environmentally.

This month our Meet The Maker Interview is with Lovena Harvey, the CEO of Gathering Place Trading, an incredible direct fair trade, BC-based, family run importer who sources products grown with sustainable earth-friendly practices. Lovena works primarily from home on Cortes Island, where her home office overlooks the garden. Their warehouse and packaging facilities are located in downtown Campbell River on Vancouver Island, and they have an incredible team of intentional staff who hand package each and every product they produce.