Singular Focus on quality

Emily Schwartz and her mother run a market for Manitoba makers, but when she envisions what she wants the business to be, she doesn’t look to other craft sales. Instead, she takes inspiration from a snack food company in Southern Ontario.

Since 1949, W.T. Hawkins Ltd. has produced the crunchy, cheese-flavoured puffs known as Cheezies. Emily recently told her mother, Deb Schwartz, that she wants their business, Scattered Seeds Craft Market, to be “the Hawkins Cheezies of craft sales.”

Hawkins perfected the cheezie, Emily explains, so whenever she wants to improve Scattered Seeds, she thinks about how she and Deb can “Hawkins-ify it” — which is her way of saying, hone in and make it the best it can be.

“As far as I know, they (Hawkins) just do one thing,” explains Emily, 31, as she sits in an office at Red River Exhibition Place in Winnipeg. “And so I just want to do one thing really good, like they did and continue to do.”

It’s three days before the start of Scattered Seeds’ annual fall market and, under the harsh glow of fluorescent lights, men operating scissor lifts are just beginning to get the venue ready.

By the time Deb, Emily and their two employees are finished, the hall will be transformed into a warm, welcoming, cosy space lit by string lights, where visitors can purchase items from hundreds of local vendors.

There will be art, bath products, candles and ceramics, as well as clothing, books, food and drinks. There’ll be flowers, jewelry, toys and games, and there’ll be textiles and products made using wood and metal — including cribbage boards and cutting boards and kitchen knives.

The market kicked off last weekend and continues Friday through Sunday.

Each weekend hosts its own set of more than 160 vendors, and though Deb still worries every year that no one will show up, the Schwartzes expect around 15,000 attendees over the two weekends.

It’s been 30 years since Deb and a group of friends organized the first Scattered Seeds market in 1995, and she and Emily are aiming to create a celebratory atmosphere at this year’s event, complete with a disco ball that’s more than a metre wide.

Of course, Deb and her friends didn’t invent the craft market concept — artisans have been selling their wares at festivals and fairs for centuries. But before Third + Bird was the word and Luckygirl popped up, Scattered Seeds was there, giving people from Winnipeg and surrounding communities a place to purchase products from local makers.

“I had no idea it would grow into what it has,” says Deb, 68. “To have a business for 30 years, I think, is pretty remarkable.”

The Scattered Seeds story starts in the 1980s, when Deb and her sister Lynda took a country folk art painting class. They reached out to their mother and two friends, and decided to hold a small craft sale that holiday season in the living room of Deb’s East St. Paul home. Their hope was to make some extra money for Christmas gifts.

The annual sale grew over the next few years and eventually 600 people were stopping by the living room to buy crafts, visit with old friends and make new connections.

In 1995, the group decided to formalize the endeavour and host the first-ever Scattered Seeds event at the Transcona Country Club.

Deb recalls how they embellished the truth when they placed a small ad in the Free Press that read: “First annual Scattered Seeds Craft Market. Booths going fast.” At that point, only three vendors had signed up.

When the market opened, though, there were more than 65. Sleet fell from the sky as the parking lot overflowed with visitors.

“My uncle came in — he was helping direct traffic with my dad at the time — and he said, ‘Debbie, I’d like to tell you it’s controlled chaos out there, but it’s absolute pandemonium,’” Deb recalls.

The event moved to Assiniboia Downs the following year, where it was held until 2010. When it outgrew that space, it moved to Red River Exhibition Place. Deb became the sole owner around 2012, and Emily joined the business as market co-ordinator in 2021.

While the event has grown over the decades, the Schwartzes say the purpose has remained the same: to celebrate and encourage creativity, and to support small Manitoba businesses by providing a reasonably priced venue for artists and crafters to sell their work.

Altona resident Shaun Dyck has been a vendor at Scattered Seeds for two decades. The 46-year-old, who started Shaun’s Pottery in 1999, sells his products at six to eight pop-up events annually. That accounts for about 75 per cent of his yearly sales, he says, and Scattered Seeds is by far the market where he does the most business.

“I couldn’t be doing what I do without them,” Dyck says. “They literally have allowed me and probably dozens of others to pursue their own passions, so we appreciate the venue that they provide for us.”

Amanda Buhse, founder of popular Winnipeg candle brand Coal and Canary, says her company appears at around 20 pop-up markets across the country each year, and Scattered Seeds is one of her favourites.

“(The Schwartzes) are powerhouses — just the loveliest people you’ll ever meet,” says Buhse, who first appeared at Scattered Seeds in 2015.

“They are dynamic, extremely creative, very hardworking, they bring so much energy … They just curate such a beautiful selection of vendors and their marketing is beautiful and very well done. They always draw a spectacular crowd.”

Although she can’t quite believe how Scattered Seeds has grown, Deb Schwartz says she is thankful for the way it has evolved over the past 30 years. She invited the co-founders to gather with her at the event on Friday so that she could thank them for the groundwork that they laid.

“I’m grateful for this business,” Deb says. “I think people think it’s a big deal when you start something (like Scattered Seeds, but) I know who I am and I’m just an ordinary person.”

With any luck, Scattered Seeds will continue to produce a quality product for decades to come — just like Hawkins Cheezies.

Deb believes that with an idea and some patience, anyone can start a business in their home. When they’re ready to share what they’ve created, she says, Scattered Seeds will be there.

“We want to help (makers) take it as far as they can,” she says. “That’s our heartbeat.”

aaron.epp@freepress.mb.ca