Quinte specialty food businesses adapt to pandemic restrictions

The two owners of Keto Napanee, Lisa (pictured) and Ben Revell, are the sole employees at their business. Photo courtesy of Lisa Revell

By Shira Rubinoff

BELLEVILLE – There are many small businesses serving specialty food in the Quinte area. Two stores in the region have risen to the challenge by adapting their businesses and keeping their doors open in the middle of what some might call the biggest obstacle in the food industry right now.

Lisa and Ben Revell own the Keto Bakery in Napanee, where they have been serving customers since late 2018. Their business bloomed from a small tray of mini donuts and is now serving sugar-free treats several days a week.

As soon as Doug Ford declared a state of emergency in Ontario in March 2020, the number of walk-in customers that the Revells saw went drastically down.

“Almost instantaneously we just saw that drop in traffic. That first week, we had so much waste because our fridge had been full and all of a sudden nobody walked in the door,” Lisa Revell shared in an interview with QNet News on Tuesday.

The couple already had an order system in place so that customers could order their cupcakes or donuts ahead of time, Lisa Revell said.

To avoid wasting ingredients, they decided to start operating solely on the online system and baking the items to order. Word-of-mouth advertising and social media have been integral to the livelihood of the business.

A forty minute drive away in Picton, Penny Morris has been operating her health food store, Penny’s Pantry, since May 2011. She said that her goals have always been to support healthy living and to share recipes with her community. She has held workshops in the past but is not currently providing the service because of social gathering restrictions. 

Morris has developed a strong relationship with her customers over the 10 years that her store has been open. Photo courtesy of Penny Morris, 2017

Before the pandemic, Morris’s small store would allow a capacity of four or five customers at a time. Now, she has transitioned to serving from the porch, she said, and her customers are grateful and supportive.

“It works about four ways in total. People just show up at the porch, knock on the door. I’ve got a sign, ‘Knock Loudly.’ If I happen to be in my back room or in the kitchen, I’ll hear them. I’ve got a very large whiteboard outside with a lot of items listed, mostly the items that I make but also specialty items, superfoods, etc, they’re listed on that big whiteboard. The food to go is somewhat listed there. I have a smaller board with a lot of my food to-go and baking listed, and that board gets propped up on a little table that’s out there. The hand sanitizer is there. So people can get quite an idea of what I offer outside.”

The other three ways to order are through email, Facebook messages or a phone call.

The owners of both stores seem to have two things in common: loyal customers that keep them going, and a relentless dedication to the work that they do. In the face of new regulations for business owners, the owners have transitioned smoothly and adapted to necessary change to succeed and thrive.