Kroeker Farms celebrated Friday the new location of The Potato Store at 715 Circle K Drive with an official ribbon cutting.
According to Liana Fehr, Manager of The Potato and executive assistant at Kroeker's, the new location gives them four times the space compared to the former location on Circle K Drive.
CEO and President of Kroeker's, Wayne Rempel says it's been a long, but good path to get to this point.
Initially, Rempel says it was former Mayor Martin Harder who he originally talked to about building the head office at the current location. "We wanted to clean this up, make it look beautiful. And I think the city trusted us to do it. And I think it's turned out really well," said Rempel.
Rempel also said it's fantastic being right next to their big shipping plant and wash plants. The additional parking spots are also an added bonus of the new store location, noted Rempel.
"We thought it was just a natural thing across the pond to have this Potato Store. Discovery Nature Sanctuary, who we've been involved with as well, is right here, and I just love the idea of people being able to stop here, get some produce, hopefully, have a cup of coffee and pastry in the future, go for a walk, enjoy the Nature Centre."
The new store allows Kroeker's the ability to add many of the new products they've wanted to for some time, but couldn't, due to a lack of space.
"We offer so much more," said Fehr. "Our focus has always been local, fresh foods, healthy foods, and also catering towards those with allergies that we care a lot of gluten-free stuff. Our CEO is celiac so he inspires me, and he always gives me suggestions on what to get... We just have so much more than potatoes. We try to support other local vendors, farmers, artisans and so we'd like to offer all of that to the community."
The Potato Store also offers a gift area, with a lot of the inventory that's locally made, Manitoba-made, or products made in Canada.
Plans are also in the works to add a bakery into the store, allowing shoppers to pick up some fresh bread and pastries as well. Rempel says they hope to have the bakery in place and open next year.
In response to Canada's Online News Act and Meta (Facebook and Instagram) removing access to local news from their platforms, PembinaValleyOnline encourages you to get your news directly from your trusted source by bookmarking this page and downloading the PembinaValleyOnline app.
