bcbusiness.ca october 2016 BCBusiness 61
Ian Walker
Founder and Owner,
Left Coast naturals
i
n 1996, ian Walker was making
peanut butter with a friend and
selling it at Granville island.
He tried making soy butter,
which wasn't very tasty, but
the experiment led him to start
packaging soy snacks under the
brand skeet & ike's and distribut-
ing the snacks across b.c. and in
the u.s. for trader Joe's. inspired
by the success, Walker continued
to develop new products, including
organic popcorn, coconut chips
and gluten-free granola under the
brand Hippie Foods. (His friend and
business partner, Jason Dorland,
left the company in 1998.) at the
same time, Walker began growing
a distribution business, trucking
health food products including
his own Left coast bulk Foods,
organic pet food and earth-friendly
laundry soap to major and specialty
grocery stores across Western
canada. in 2012, the company was
the first to be certified by b Lab, a
nonprofit organization that audits
businesses for their practices relat-
ing to employees, the environment,
the community and corporate
transparency. "We're not in this to
be the biggest business ever," says
Walker. "i want to leave a legacy
that i'm proud of." –M.G.
Ray Russell
Founder and Owner,
Fresh Slice
R
ay Russell started Fresh Slice,
a pizza-by-the-slice shop, at
Boundary and Commercial
in 1999. His original idea was
to ožer a healthier alternative to
fast food, with multi-grain dough,
skim-milk mozzarella and local veg-
etables. He began to sell franchises
in 2002, and the business grew. But
he was struck by one ineciency:
every day, franchisees would make
dough and roll it out on a sheet at
the rate of 25 pizza rounds an hour.
In 2008, Russell began developing
his own machinery at a Burnaby
facility, which was able to churn
out 800 sheets of pizza dough an
hour. He began shipping the dough
to his franchises and passing on
the cost savings to the owners (who
don't pay the royalties, advertising
fees or call centre charges that are
typical of many franchise models).
The business has since grown from
20 locations to 80 today, with 20
more in the works on Vancouver
Island and in Ontario. —M.G.
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