MBiz

12 SPRING 2021 WHEN THE CHIPS ARE DOWN … Made-in Manitoba snack foods hit the spot BY DENISE DUGUAY LA COCINA & OLD DUTCH FOODS We can't eat our way out of this COVID crisis, but we've tried. T he phrase "snackification" has popped up to describe the vigour with which house-bound consumers' turned to snack foods. It might not be the socializing that we are craving after more than a year of social distancing, but at least it's socializing behaviour to keep us sharp for when we can get together over nachos or ripple chips and dip. Fans of Old Dutch Foods, which started in Winnipeg in 1954, have been stocking up on their favourites, says national marketing director Scott Kelemen. "Consumers are reducing their trips to stores as expected and purchasing more on each trip, so multiple purchases per trip have increased." Restaurant closures took a bite out of the food-services end of the snack-food business. But it's also been a strong year for retail sales at La Cocina, says company president Pat Warkentin. A strong year that has built on "a really steep growth curve since all the way back to 2012," when he and his wife, office manager Jodi Warkentin, expanded the family business that started in 1984. Still strongest in Western Canada, the business based in the RM of St. Anne has grown beyond its Manitoba focus, now reaching across Canada, down to the Dakotas, Minneapolis, Chicago and as far as Florida. Specific to COVID shopping, says Warkentin, "we had those two to three weeks right at the beginning, that craziness where everybody was shopping like crazy. We saw quite a little extra bump in there." But as for so many families during COVID, business was not the only concern. "My wife's father passed away quite suddenly and it was right at the end of November, right when all the heavy restrictions were coming in," Warkentin says. "We couldn't celebrate his life or have any proper funeral. My children couldn't even go to his funeral." The feeling, expressed during a family discussion, "was that there's no joy left. And we just said, 'Well, the only way you're going to do it is to go out and create it.' " For the Warkentins, that meant packing bags of chips into Christmas bags and, with the help of a staff member, delivering them to nearby homes, "thinking it was a one- time deal and it basically just turned our spirits around." So much so that they went out several nights in a row, with everyone in the "Fans of Old Dutch Foods, which started in Winnipeg in 1954, have been stocking up on their favourites."

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