2 weeks Ago
Summer Fresh CEO Susan Niczowski. Kyle Scott/The Globe and Mail A lot of people don’t even realize we’re Canadian. But my mom and I started Summer Fresh in our basement in the early 1990s.
Breaking bread with family and friends was always important to us as Macedonians, and I felt there was a need for fresh, good-for-you, prepared gourmet food. But back then, you could only buy basic salads like potato, macaroni and coleslaw that were filled with preservatives. In my early 20s, I came up with technology to keep vegetables fresh without additives or preservatives.
My mom and I would chop vegetables in the morning, assemble them and sell them to specialty food stores. We did this for many, many years. We had a lot of fun, laughter and tears, because it was hard work, but we were able to create a base for the specialty gourmet salad market.
Eventually, my dad, an engineer, helped us design a plant and equipment. And my sister helped in production. Together, she and I have been able to grow the business.
Now, Summer Fresh is the No. 1 brand of hummus, dips and salads in English-speaking Canada. Items you think are going to be a slam dunk sometimes don’t work Buying Canadian – supporting Canadian families and Canadian raw materials – is extremely important.
And we purchase as much Canadian product as we can. Our hummus is made solely with chickpeas from Saskatchewan. But there are some products you can’t purchase from Canada.
So tariffs have been keeping me up at night these past couple of months. We just don’t know what’s going to happen with raw materials coming in from the United States. A lot of fresh vegetables – red and green peppers, celery, cucumbers – come from there or from Mexico via the U.
S. We don’t know whether retaliatory tariffs will be placed or not, which would mean prices of raw materials go up. And we do ship to the U.
S., so we’re concerned we’ll be hit with tariffs and won’t be competitive. In the meantime, I love creating new products – we do it all the time, much like the fashion industry creates new runway fashions for fall, winter, spring and summer.
That’s how we started with dips. I love potato chips, but there were no good dips in the market. There was only guck in cans with all sorts of words you couldn’t pronounce.
A few months after we launched our salads, I came up with the idea of adding hummus, baba ghanoush, tzatziki and bruschetta. One thing led to another, and 34 years later, we’re here. For every successful product, there have been many failures.
Items you think are going to be a slam dunk sometimes don’t work. A few years ago, we launched a line of nutty plant-based items. They were great, and they started to take off, and then COVID-19 hit.
People were constrained going to the grocery store and weren’t able to purchase the products they typically did, so we had to delist those smaller specialty items. But our Summer Fresh dill pickle hummus is the No. 1 SKU in Canada.
I mean, I can eat a whole jar of fresh, gourmet dill pickles, but who would’ve thought? Your time is valuable. Have the Top Business Headlines newsletter conveniently delivered to your inbox in the morning or evening. Sign up today .
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