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Last month, businesses from all over Manitoba entered Golden West Broadcasting’s Accelerate 2025 contest. The contest was aimed to help small businesses in a time of economic uncertainty by giving away advertising packages to help spread the word about the work that they do in our communities and to help them grow in a turbulent economy.
Out of all the entries, four businesses were chosen to win advertising packages totaling $40,000. One of those businesses was Hoffmann’s Fine Foods in Winnipeg, which won one of three $5,000 packages. Founded in 1986 by Klaus Hoffmann, the former head of Red River College Polytechnic’s Culinary Arts program, the business has never forgotten its humble origins.
“It started with hand-crafted chicken fingers and honey dill sauce,” shares Hoffmann’s marketing coordinator Habiba Mohamed with a laugh. “It doesn’t get any more Manitoba than that.”
Since then, Hoffmann’s popularity has allowed them to expand into offering other gourmet frozen foods such as stuffed chicken breast dishes, shepherd’s pies, and a wide variety of flavoured meatballs. “You can just pop them in the oven for thirty minutes and enjoy a quick and healthy meal with your family,” says Mohamed, while noting that the business has also expanded to catering at restaurants and hotels and providing their products wholesale to grocery store chains.
Despite this growth, Hoffmann’s has always maintained that family-oriented business model that was an integral part of its early years. Mohamed highlights the connection between their two locations at 1504 St. Mary’s Road just west of St. Vital Centre and at 107 Plymouth Road in Winnipeg’s northwest corner. “We definitely operate like a family, talking on the phone every day and making sure that we’re all kind of aligned,” she says. “We make sure that there’s just a lot of communication. There’s a lot of love between both of the locations.”
That love has helped to sustain Hoffmann’s through the challenges of tariff threats and economic volatility in the last few months. Mohamed hopes that by winning one of the Accelerate 2025 advertising packages, the word will spread about their business and encourage people to visit them at both of their locations and at local markets out in the community.
“It’s great just spreading the word,” Mohamed says, “talking about how we started, the labour of love that goes into Hoffmann’s Fine Foods and getting the word out there. I’d love for listeners to come visit us!”
The other two businesses to receive $5,000 packages from Golden West were Southeast Cleaners in Steinbach and Portage Family Dental in Portage La Prairie. The province-wide winner of a $25,000 advertising package was Steward Brothers Construction in Winkler.