Our Story
The story behind our company began when our family first came to this country from Poland. To us the one thing that stood out the most was the scale of everything in Canada. Everything was so much bigger; the distances were greater, cars were bigger, homes were larger, and unfortunately, even the ingredient listings on food labels were longer. When we first came here we ended up coming to a small town in northern Saskatchewan where third and fourth generation Poles, Ukrainians, and Germans blended seamlessly to make up the cultural patchwork of rural Saskatchewan. Here we were both surprised and really delighted to see the culinary traditions of these countries being fiercely protected and cultivated. Everything from pickling to baking was lovingly passed on throughout the generations. The pantries of peoples’ homes were filled with feasts waiting in the making. However, the shelves of stores were a completely different story. We found it astonishing that store shelves were dominated with mass produced, huge agribusiness farm-sourced products leaving little room for variety or the appreciation of artisan quality foods.
This was back in the early 1980’s, and while many things have changed for the better since then, much has gotten worse. The rise of Genetically Modified foods and the increase in the use of harsh pesticides springs to mind. So, this is where the inspiration came to launch our own organic line with the very foods that are part of our cultural tradition. When called upon to deliver a quality product that is nutritious, delicious and good for the environment, we jokingly like to call our Greenola line “the little organic label that could.”
