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Peppered Pig slays the Dragon

The competition on Wednesday night at Prince Charles Theatre featured five local business owners vying for a $1,000 gift certificate from Creston Save-On-Foods.
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Jessica Piccinin was the winner of the second annual Creston Valley Chamber of Commerce Dragon’s Den. (Photo credit Lorne Eckersley)

Jessica Piccinin and her food truck, The Peppered Pig, are the winners of the second annual Creston Valley Chamber of Commerce Dragon’s Den.

The competition on Wednesday night at Prince Charles Theatre featured five local business owners vying for a $1,000 gift certificate from Creston Save-On-Foods.

Piccinnin, the last candidate to take the stage, began with the story of how she returned to her hometown after working in the Alberta oil patch, and took up farming on family property in Erickson.

Ironically, she comes from a family of vegetarians, but eventually found herself raising pigs. She found a master butcher in Kimberley who could make charcuterie from the meat, and soon she was selling sausages and meat cuts along with the vegetables she raised on Root & Vine Acres, her Duck Lake Road farm.

An opportunity to purchase a food truck arose, and Piccinin formed a partnership with her brother to make the purchase. She credited the Kootenay Employment Service program LEAP—Local Entrepreneurship Accelerator Program—for giving her the basic tools to plan and operate a successful business. The Peppered Pig has become a familiar site around town and other Kootenay locations, and she described her newest creation, a takeoff on the traditional Reuben sandwich, made entirely with local products.

“In the future I’d love to see more local food trucks in Creston and our region,” she said, adding that she has considered franchising The Peppered Pig.

Her enterprise has grown to the point where this summer she hired a full-time cook and two support staff to operate the truck. Find more information at https://pepperthatpig.ca/.

The Dragon’s Den competition dropped to five businesses after four earlier entrants dropped out for various reasons, the show’s emcee and Chamber of Commerce manager Vern Gorham said.

The first presenter was Dave Schellenberg, who has become a familiar face at the Creston Valley Farmers’ Market with his Cedar BBQ Scrapers. Schellenberg explained that his wife became concerned about using the ubiquitous wire scraper after hearing about problems with wires getting into food. She asked him to make her a different scraper as an alternative.

Schellenberg chose cedar, came up with a paddle-like design and found that it worked well, even better than a wire scraper, and improved with use as it developed grooves specific to the barbecue it was used on. It is also easy to clean, he said.

He has made about 1,000 scrapers, many engraved with symbols and words (including the popular Spank Me!) in the last year, using a computer-operated router and finishing them with food-safe tung oil. He has continued making appearances at farmers’ markets and now also has the scrapers in 13 stores in BC and Alberta. Find more information on Facebook at Beaver Tail BBQ Scraper.

Alayna Blackmore was next up, presenting her Shop Creston on-line service for local businesses. “Our mission is to show businesses what on-line services can do for them,” she said. “To help educate the local business owners in where to showcase their business and why it is important to build a following on-line.”

Response to her service has been good, she said, because many smaller business owners either don’t have the time or knowledge to build an on-line presence. She offers a contract service to manage the program for business owners, but added that the platform is designed for them to easily make changes on their own, whever they are needed. Find more information at https://shopcreston.ca/.

Dylan Fladhamer is another familiar face at the Creston Valley Farmers’ Market, where he sells the Paleo GO nutrition protein bars. Fladhamer explained that he wanted to develop products that did not trigger his own physical reactions to many processed foods.

He and his partner originally planned to open a storefront business, but they are now focused on selling the bars on their web site and at farmers’ markets.

“I love the farmers’ markets because I get to interact personally with people and talk to them about the products,” he said. The bars are easily digestible, tasty and nutritious, and are ideal for travellers who often can’t easily find snacks or light meals that won’t cause physical issues, he said.

Fladhamer also pointed out that Paleo GO Nutrition is also a socially responsible business, and $1 from each bar sold is donated to charity. Find more information at https://paleogo.ca/.

The enthusiasm of the final contestant, Jo-Anne Schultz, could well have kept her out of the Top 3. She had barely scratched the surface of her My Authentic Food business when her time ran out.

Schultz said her business model “helps and includes others to showcase their authentic food locally to create a platform for food education, sustainability, creativity and food security in the Kootenays or anywhere in the world.”

Her recent presentations, done in her home, have included 7 Secret Ingredients for Caribbean Cooking and Bush Medicine, and were well-received by participants, she said. She plans to expand her presentations to other locations and to include other cooks who have ethnic specialties. Find more information at My Authentic Food on Facebook.

Judges Amy Carter, Scott Veitch and Myrna Nielsen selected Blackmore as the third place winner and Fladhamer was second.

Carlos Burton made the first prize presentation to Piccinin on behalf of Save-On-Foods, the platinum sponsor of this year’s Dragon’s Den.