Cornelius and Dora Friesen wouldn’t mind a bit of competition. They sometimes get run off their feet trying to meet demand for the specialty breads and other baking that they make at their rural home near Riverton, Man.
“The need for what we can do is far beyond what we can supply,” said Cornelius. “We don’t want to get into big business.”
The Friesens used to farm, but concluded several years ago that they did not have a large enough land base to stay viable. So they gradually withdrew from grain and livestock and built up their baking enterprise.
Read Also
Canola oil transloading facility opens
DP World just opened its new canola oil transload facility at the Port of Vancouver. It can ship one million tonnes of the commodity per year.
It was a decision they don’t regret.
“We phased out of that part of our life and we haven’t looked back,” Cornelius said. “We’re living the dream of our lives right now, except for one thing: it’s very hard work.”
The Friesens’ enterprise arose from their interest in healthful foods for themselves and their six children. When friends and acquaintances learned about some of the breads they were making, orders for their baking began to trickle in.
Among other things, the Friesens were making bread from stone-milled flour, without the use of white sugar and white salt. They also make bread without yeast, an ingredient that not everyone can tolerate.
Mostly through word of mouth, the Friesens’ clientele began to grow. That prompted them to convert their two-car garage into a bakery and storefront, which they named Integrity Foods.
Besides marketing from their own store, they now supply bread and other products such as cookies and cinnamon rolls to organic food buying clubs and seven other stores in Manitoba.
They have two main baking days each week. Those days can keep them on their feet for 18-20 hours because of the amount of work that needs to be done.
Their children all play a role in the business, including two daughters who moved to Winnipeg. Debbie does the bookkeeping and Darlene returns on Friday evenings to help with pizza night.
The pizza night, held only during the milder months of the year, proved a popular attraction. Each Friday evening, from mid-May to mid-September, 60-70 homemade pizzas are sold.
The Friesens have what Cornelius describes as a “tourist friendly” yard. They set up picnic tables so that people arriving for pizza night can enjoy spending time there.
A centrepiece of the Friesens’ enterprise is a brick oven heated with firewood. The special oven was needed to bake what Cornelius calls naturally leavened bread, which is the bread made without yeast. They found naturally leavened bread does not rise properly when baked in a conventional oven but bakes fine in a brick oven with wood fire.
In the future, the Friesens want to extend their bakeshop and install a larger brick oven. That would make it more feasible for the children to stay involved, without making the venture into a large commercial bakery.
“We’re not a factory,” Cornelius said. “We’re artisan bakers. We follow the dough through from beginning to end.”
Although other people might be tempted to imitate what they have done, Cornelius seems confident there is room for competition, since the family recipes and ingredients make their products unique.
“I have no plans to retire,” he said. “I want to just bake to my last day.”
