Much like the bread she makes, Cora Wiens’ business has grown slowly and intentionally. <\/p>\n
Wiens is the owner of Eadha Bread, a small bakery that trades exclusively in fermented sourdough made from organic local ingredients.<\/p>\n She realized there was an appetite for her homemade bread when she got involved in the Wolseley Farmers’ Market and would sell 70 loaves in just three hours. Two years (and many shared ovens) later, Wiens is selling 500 to 600 loaves a week in her own bakery space at 577 Ellice Ave. <\/p>\n “I sort of did it on a whim, I quit my job to start doing it and then it took off.” she said. “It wasn’t my plan to get here, but I’m also not surprised to be here — I’m just super proud and happy.”<\/p>\n Food has always been important to Wiens, who grew up on a vegetable farm south of Winnipeg and has worked in a variety of bakeries and restaurants in the city. She has always liked baking and got her first experience with bread while working at Tall Grass Prairie — which is where she got the sourdough starter for all of the loaves she makes now. <\/p>\n “The process of making sourdough bread is one that I really enjoy,” Wiens said. “You have to be alert and awake during the process, which can change depending on the temperature, the air, the ingredients.”<\/p>\n At Eadha — which means “endurance” or “from the Earth” depending on who you ask — it takes three days to get the bread ready for the oven because Wiens works with wild yeast and ferments her dough for 24 hours. <\/p>\n “The digestive benefits are pretty significant,” she said. “It’s good for folks who are sensitive to gluten because the bread is predigested.”<\/p>\n Natasa Simeonidis is a regular at Eadha Bread. She signed up for the bakery’s bread share program about a year ago and has been stopping at the store on Ellice Avenue every Tuesday since it opened in May.<\/p>\n “I do have tons of allergies, so I have to be very careful where I shop and what I eat,” she said. “I loved the flavour and the texture and of course I was safe, I didn’t get ill… I was hooked after that.”<\/p>\n While she was drawn in by the bread, Simeonidis said the bakery’s atmosphere is also important to her.<\/p>\n The shop’s bright yellow exterior matches the friendly faces inside mixing dough, making coffee and chatting with customers. The flour-filled bakery in the back of the narrow building is visible from the retail space, where a Pride flag hangs over a small seating area.<\/p>\n “I want to be intentional about all the aspects of the business, so hiring, the way that the space feels and how it includes people,” Wiens said, adding that they keep their prices low to accommodate everyone in the neighbourhood. <\/p>\n “Operating the business in a way that is intentionally dismantling things like racism and homophobia and transphobia and classism is, I think, the only way I know how to do business.”<\/p>
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