Near and dear For well-ingrained bakery/café, Trump trade tensions just another good reason to shop local By: David Sanderson Posted: 2:00 AM CDT Saturday, Mar. 15, 2025

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/03/2025 (541 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

STEINBACH — Ongoing trade tensions between Canada and the United States have caused consumers on this side of the border to protest with their wallets by actively seeking out Canadian-made products.

When polled, 42 per cent of Canadians stated they are presently doing everything in their power to avoid purchasing U.S.-sourced goods. Furthermore, 56 per cent of respondents said they are willing to cross certain items off their shopping list completely if they fail to turn up a homegrown option.

Like most grocery-store owners, Chris Goertzen, the founder of Main Bread and Butter in Steinbach, has noticed an increase in the number of customers who are consciously searching for Canadian and/or locally produced fare. The thing is, ever since the well-appointed shop opened in the province’s third-largest city in 1997, “buy local” has been the name of the game there.

“The same as five years ago during COVID, we were definitely well-positioned when all the tariff talk began, when it came to people wanting to support Canadian and Manitoba producers as much as possible,” says Goertzen, seated next to Randy Reimer, his business partner of three years, in Main Bread and Butter’s in-house café, perhaps best-known for its made-from-scratch chicken-noodle soup. (Reimer jokes, saying he and his staff are always aware when there’s a cold going around town, based on pottage sales.)

“Since Day 1, we’ve been intentional about stocking unique, local products for two reasons,” Goertzen continues.

“No. 1, we’re very aware of how hard it is for creators to get their output into stores, which we can easily do for them. And No. 2, we know that supporting local brings tremendous value to the community. So yes, this movement, if you want to call it that, isn’t something that’s new to us. We’ve been at it for 28 years.”

Goertzen, a married father of three, grew up the youngest of five siblings on a farm approximately 10 kilometres east of Steinbach. After graduating high school, he moved to Montreal for two years to study French. Upon his return in 1995, he joined his brother Robert, who had started a distribution business delivering locally baked bread and various other items to grocers throughout southeastern Manitoba.

Over the course of time, the pair began to notice smaller stores in centres such as Dominion City and Sprague were being bought out by national chains, ones that had little to no interest in stocking buns from a Steinbach bakery, or meat from a North End Winnipeg butcher shop.

“To put it simply, we thought that wasn’t right and that maybe there was an opportunity for us to fill a niche,” Goertzen says.

As reflected in its name, Main Bread and Butter opened in 1997 in a 600-square-foot space on Steinbach’s Main Street. In addition to offering commodities such as Bothwell Cheese and Winnipeg Old Country Sausage in an attractive, general-store setting, choosing a downtown space was uppermost in their minds.

“I’ve been a firm believer in the downtown feeling for a long time. We know the heart of any city is its identity, and we hoped our store would become part of Steinbach’s identity,” Goertzen says.

Their hunch proved to be correct. Within three years, the brothers had expanded to a larger space, a couple of addresses over. Were they concerned when a Real Canadian Superstore opened along Highway 12, a few kilometres away, in the early 2000s? Not overly, Goertzen contends. He and his brother recognized there was a definite need for larger grocery stores in the growing city, but they were confident they had by then established a loyal-enough following to see them through whatever ripples lied ahead.

Right again: in 2010, they relocated a second time, to a 2,500-square-foot space at 253 Main St. that doubled in size eight years later, when they acquired a vacant insurance agency, directly next door.

During that period, from 2006 to 2018, Goertzen served as Steinbach’s mayor, a part-time position that allowed him to continue his duties at Main Bread and Butter. He smiles, saying if constituents ever had a beef, or were in need of some, they knew where to find him.

Reimer joined Goertzen in 2023, after Goertzen’s brother stepped away from day-to-day operations. A long-time customer, he is presently in charge of both the store’s general design, and of deciding what goes on the shelves.

“Since I started working with Chris, it’s been a matter of keeping my eyes and ears open for what’s out there,” says Reimer, guesstimating that 85 per cent of current stock is made in Canada, with close to 100 different products hailing from within the province itself.

“Some of it is coming across things on social media, and some of it is word-of-mouth. Our customers are pretty savvy and lots of times in their travels to farmers’ markets or pop-up sales, they’ll spy things they believe would be a good fit here and show us a picture on their phone. We’ll do a bit of investigating and take it from there.”

What has surprised him, Goertzen pipes in, is the number of coffee roasters springing up in the immediate and surrounding area. They presently offer close to 10 varieties of coffee, including three from Steinbach: Fluid Bean, Hitch + Boler and Stone City.

Marcede Sebelius is the “Cede” in Spreads by Cede, a Winnipeg-based business founded in 2018 that specializes in nut butters.

A couple of weeks ago, Sebelius received a message from Reimer informing her he and Goertzen were interested in carrying her line.

“I’d heard of Bread and Butter before, and it had been on my radar to contact them, so I was thrilled when Randy reached out to me and expressed an interest in our products,” Sebelius says when reached at Lavanda Café, which she opened in 2023 on the ground level of Smith Street Lofts, in downtown Winnipeg.

“It was very validating to have a local business genuinely want to support another small, local business.”

Sebelius, whose spreads are also available at Red River Co-op and Vita Health stores, calls boutique shops such as Main Bread and Butter a “gateway to our success as a small-scale food manufacturer.”

She feels such associations are beneficial for both parties, not only in terms of sales, but also in helping — no pun intended — to spread the word about comestibles everyday consumers aren’t necessarily familiar with.

“They’re small actions that can lead to huge success in the local food-and-beverage industry” she says, noting the store is carrying her four top sellers: Chaga Vanilla cashew butter, Birthday Cake cashew butter, Cacao Maca almond butter and Açai Blueberry almond butter.

Peter Fehr, founder of Gourmet Inspirations, a 13-year-old, award-winning enterprise specializing in bottled sauces and syrups, echoes Sebelius’s sentiments.

He first became associated with Main Bread and Butter in 2018, not long after his Steinbach-based biz was named one of the nation’s top 10 food companies by Food in Canada magazine.

“Initially I would have approached them… and then I approached them again three years ago, to introduce my new brand,” he says, listing his coffee syrups, which include Mexican vanilla and salted caramel, as the most popular items sold there.

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“These independent shops are a great way to expose my products to local customers who haven’t seen them before, and overall, across Canada, these smaller shops are my main bread and butter.” (See what he did there?)

“Every community has these kinds of stores and they have helped sustain my business.”

Reimer mentions that Main Bread and Butter’s regular clientele isn’t limited to those from the confines of the “Automobile City.” It’s remarkable, he points out, how many Winnipeggers make the drive on a weekly or monthly basis, to pick up a few favourites such as Lo Cocina chips from Ste. Anne, Spenst Brothers pizza from Winkler or Notre Dame Creamery butter.

“Just yesterday I was talking to a couple from Fort Frances (Ont.) who said they make a point of stopping in every time they come this way for medical reasons or to have their vehicle serviced.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca