Kaslo Sourdough began with Silvio & Gabriele, the heart of the business: for over twenty years, they have worked together to build the business up to where it is today. It was their life experiences that shaped the business journey.
Silvio’s upbringing played a huge part in his passion for naturally fermented foods, especially for anything and everything to do with sourdough; Silvio grew up in a small German Bavarian town at the foot of the Alps in the sixties. This region of Germany has much history in different cuisines, customs, art, and people, and growing up there inspired him to study the sourdough phenomena. Recently, they have translated this into the first sourdough pasta.
On a visit back to Germany, he fell in love with Gabriele, she then joined him in Kaslo in the mid-’80s, and together, they started a family. Gabriele has been integral in facilitating the growth of the bakery by handling orders, managing the money, and supporting the innovation side of the business in and out of the kitchen.
In 1991 he baked his first sourdough bread in an outdoor brick oven in the village of Kaslo. For two summers, he baked fresh sourdough bread daily, which then, after much love from the community, became a year-round offering. The same sourdough culture is still the one they use today. Over the years, he has written numerous articles for the sourdough bakery website about many different things he has learned.
Through his life-long studies, he realized sourdough culture has several positive health effects on the digestive system. So much so that some people with wheat allergies or sensitivities to wheat can eat KSB bread and pasta.
As for the rest of the family business: daughter Heidi works as General Manager, her sister Heike manages most of the business accounts, and her brother Stefan works in a central production role at the bakery after undertaking a baking apprenticeship in Germany and his wife, Tania joined the team to manage sales.
Question: How are you supporting other local businesses?
Answer: Supporting local is a big part of our business. We source our ingredients as close to home as possible. Almost 100% of our ingredients are made and grown in Canada, from growers and millers like Nunweiler’s Flour Company, Rogers Foods, Anita’s Organic Mill, Manitoba Harvest Hemp Foods, and a Creston-local farmer. We benefit from the distribution services of Snow Cap Interior Food Services Ltd. for getting our ingredients. Being located in a rural area of B.C., we often look to local service providers to make our business a success. Over the years, the Kaslo Building Supply has made many of our projects come together with two-by-fours, nails, plywood, tools, and other building supplies. We use the waste management services from award-winning Kaslo local company Kootenay Waste Services. When our company vehicles need servicing, we take them to Kaslo Automotive. For special occasions like Christmas and birthdays, we purchase from local companies like Nelson Chocofeller, and Kaslo specialty and grocery stores like Sunnyside Naturals and Cornucopia for small gifts. As a small family business, we do try to do many of our projects in-house, but when we need special project support, Kaslo Electric has been an important service provider for electrical, and CGW Plumbing and Heating in Nelson has been helpful as well. We have partnerships with several brand ambassadors who undertake social media and recipe development activities for our company based in Delta and Kelowna, B.C. Our web development support and website hosting company is Diguno Media in Kelowna, B.C. We’ve also used Collabo Consulting in the Slocan Valley to support our advertising initiatives.
Pinnacle Professional Accounting has helped us ensure all our business accounts are in order. Cowan’s Office Supplies in Nelson, B.C. has provided us with many of the paper, pen, and business materials we’ve needed over the years. And we wouldn’t be able to get some of our orders out of the Kootenays without VanKam Freightways Ltd. and Overland West.
Question: What social and environmental practices are you proud of?
Answer: Supporting our employees, who are at the heart of our company, is important to our business. Kaslo Sourdough has long paid our employees a living wage. We value a diverse workplace, are a part women-owned and women-run business. Our production facilities employ only staff who live in Kaslo and the surrounding area.
Local to our community, we also support many organizations in Kaslo with donations for fundraisers and our local food hub. As a local family business, we think it’s important to contribute to the fabric of our local community.
Specific to our products, we designed our packaging with several environmentally-conscious factors. Our high-quality food-grade packaging has a ziplock top and is reusable in several ways, which we promote on our social media pages. The packages are also recyclable. We also take a simple approach to packaging: we have a variety of differently-sized recyclable cardboard boxes that get filled with our product and do not use styrofoam peanut fillers or plastic air-filled pockets to reduce environmental impact. Further, we offer bulk order options for additional lower environmental impact and using less packaging materials per order for those customers interested in that option.
Our pastas are made in British Columbia, Canada using Canadian ingredients, so they have a lower carbon footprint than those imported to the country. Being a domestic food producer, we can continue to produce and supply our products despite supply chain issues related to climate change.
Woman Owned
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