Семейный бизнес в Винклере открывает магазин фермерской еды The Rancher's Table

For Dave Wiebe, The Rancher's Table didn't begin with a business plan. It started with a butcher. Wiebe's brother had experience in the trade and joined him on the family farm. For the first time, Wiebe suddenly had something he hadn't had before: manpower. “He had the experience with that,” Wiebe said. “And he joined me on the farm. And we were like, well, for the first time ever, we had manpower.” That led to Pemina Meats, the family's butcher shop. But Wiebe soon started thinking beyond processing meat. “We wanted to do more than just do butchered meat,” he said. “So we figured, you know what, let's go retail.” That idea became The Rancher's Table, a new food store at 585 1st Street in Winkler, beside Superstore. Bringing the ranch to the table The name is intentional. Wiebe wanted the store to reflect what his own family eats at home on the ranch, while giving customers the option of taking those meals home themselves. “What I wanted to do was kind of what we have at home on the ranch, our meals, what we make for ourselves, including the meat,” he said. That has grown into a lineup of frozen meals, along with hot meals and a variety of meat products. The approach is simple: familiar food, generous portions and prices that Wiebehopes will remain accessible. “I wanted something that was like wholesome, like big portions, because I'm a big boy,” he said. “So I was like, if I want to sit down for a meal, I want to be filled.” There is a practical reason for the focus on affordability, too. “You need basic food. You need basic ingredients,” Wiebe said. “Times are not that easy for everyone.” The menu includes shepherd's pie, enchiladas and other meals, with larger family portions as well as smaller individual sizes. The menu is also not set in stone. The menu is already changing When The Rancher's Table first started offering frozen meals, buffalo mac and cheese was Wiebe's personal favourite. That has since changed. A new lasagna has taken the top spot, but it is not exactly the traditional version. “I call it the Mennonite lasagna because it's not a traditional lasagna,” Wiebe said. “It's more of a schmontfat based kind of thing. It's got more of a cream base in it.” Wiebe laughed when describing it, warning that it is definitely rich. “It's rich,” he said. “It's rich.” The changes to the menu are part of what Wiebe has enjoyed about opening a retail business. “It's been fun,” he said. He came into the project with no retail background and admits the business has not turned out exactly as he expected. “I had zero retail experience coming into this,” Wiebe said. “I had not a clue what I was doing.” That has meant paying attention to what customers are buying and adjusting along the way. “What I thought we were going to be focusing on versus what we're focusing on now,” he said, “totally different.” The community, in other words, is helping shape what The Rancher's Table becomes. “You just kind of go with, okay, this is kind of what's working,” Wiebe said. “This is what the community kind of wants. So then you just kind of pivot and let's go there, right?” Then there is the bacon farmer sausage If there is one product that captures some of Wiebe's personality, it might be the bacon farmer sausage. Wiebe says bacon is included in almost half of the store's products, and he wanted to find a way to have some fun with it. “I'm a bacon freak,” he said. “So I was like, what can we do to have some more fun with bacon?” The answer was combining bacon with farmer sausage. The first attempt was not exactly a success. “The first batch was awful,” Wiebe said. “It didn't work.” They kept experimenting until the third attempt finally delivered what they were looking for. “Try #3, it was just like, oh, there we go,” he said. The final product is 50 per cent bacon, giving it a softer texture and higher fat content than traditional farmer sausage. Wiebe says customers should cook it a little differently, too. “You kind of want to get it a little bit on the crispier side,” he said. “Because the crispier you get it, the more that bacon flavor will come out.” It still has the familiar seasoning of farmer sausage, but with an extra hit of bacon. A family business in every sense of the word The business has also changed how the Wiebe family spends time together. All three of Wiebe's daughters work at The Rancher's Table. His oldest daughter helps manage the store. His middle daughter is joining the business more now that the summer camp season is over, while his youngest daughter is also regularly involved. Instead of everyone leaving work at the end of the day and heading home for supper, the family sometimes simply eats together at the store. “If we can schedule it that way, we'll actually meet for supper there,” Wiebe said. They head to the back and have their family dinner before getting back to work. “Because well, you got to change it, and that's important to me,” he said. “So you have to change it, you adapt to what works, right?” It is one of the unexpected parts of building a business with your family. “We're slightly busier now than we were before,” Wiebe said. “And I can work with them.” Then came a laugh. “They can't get away from me.” From a family idea to a community business The Rancher's Table is still evolving, but that may be part of the fun for Wiebe. The original idea was to take the food his family already enjoyed and bring it to a retail setting. Along the way, the business has become something slightly different as customers have shown the Wiebes what they want. Much of the pork is processed through the family's own butcher shop. Wiebe says it comes from a barn about four miles from the family farm, just outside Miami, and is turned into sausages, smokies and other products in-house. The beef is handled differently, with ground beef processed by the family while steaks are sourced from Alberta. It is another example of the practical approach behind the business: make as much as possible themselves, offer food they would be happy to put on their own table, and adjust when something isn't working. That approach will be on display this weekend as The Rancher's Table celebrates its grand opening. Grand opening set for Friday and Saturday The Rancher's Table will hold its grand opening Friday, September 4 and Saturday, September 5, with the store open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. both days. The first 50 customers on Friday will receive a gift card. Customers who come through the doors during the grand opening will also receive a coupon for a frozen meal, with one meal available per family. There will also be grand-opening sales on farmer sausage, bacon farmer sausage, smokies and ground beef. For Wiebe, the weekend is about more than opening the doors and putting products on sale. It is a chance to introduce the community to a business that has already taken the family in a direction they didn't quite expect. What began with a little extra manpower on the farm has become a butcher shop, a retail store and, increasingly, another place for the Wiebe family to gather around the table.