26 BCBusiness July 2014 ROBERT kEnnEy
The $3 Doughnut and Our
Gourmet Obsession
W
hen Cartems Donuts Inc. opened
its first pop-up store on Vancou-
ver's Downtown Eastside, the
gourmet pastry shop routinely
sold out of product by mid-after-
noon, with customers waiting in line for
upwards of 30 minutes to buy $3 dough-
nuts. It's easy to doubt the future of a com-
pany pinning its livelihood on a single item
that can be bought elsewhere for a fraction
of the price, but two-and-a-half years later,
Cartems has opened a permanent store-
front on West Pender Street.
According to Tony Chapman, founder
and
CEO of Toronto-based marketing
agency Capital C Communications LP,
gourmet brands like Cartems are capturing
our imagination by offering more than just
a product. "They're not buying the dough-
nut—they're buying the experience," he says
of customers' penchant to shell out extra
bucks for specialty products. In Canada a
perfect storm is brewing for gourmet food
uptake: an aging population is moving away
from "stuff" and toward experiences; a
younger generation wants to have and share
unique experiences ("something gourmet is
a much more interesting thing to post about
than something mass," says Chapman); and
a growing ethnic population is influencing
our food culture with new flavours.
Chapman says the individual passion
behind these products contributes to the
two essential elements of gourmet prod-
ucts: substance and essence. People want
to know exactly what they're getting, where
it's coming from and the authentic story
behind it.
Here are some of the B.C.-based entre-
preneurs successfully getting in on the
gourmet action.
•
The specialty food business is booming worldwide and B.C.
entrepreneurs are taking a run at the trend
by Kristen Hilderman
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