A Winkler entrepreneur has found success in the homegrown market by selling his products in stores across the Pembina Valley to Winnipeg. Peter Fehr creates homemade sauces that make up the company Gourmet Inspirations.

Photos courtesy of Peter Fehr.

"I call them gourmet finishing sauces. On the savoury side, my top seller is a creamy peppercorn whiskey and on the sweet side the salted caramel whiskey. The creamy peppercorn's good for steak with some fried onions and mushroom and the dessert one is for cheesecake and ice cream."

Although he grew up in the area, Fehr now lives in Steinbach and runs his company out of Winnipeg.

"I was selling at a local farmer's market in Winnipeg, and I was just chatting with my neighbour vendor and we were talking about how we could throw an event, a fun evening to bring some people together . . . As we were chatting we kind of realized we have all these amazing food companies that are all around us at the market. Why don't we bring them together and create a really nice evening out and just make an event out of that?"

This is how he became a co-founder of the successful Winnipeg food and drink market called "Love Local," which just entered its sixth year. Fehr says the event almost always sells out, and since its birth, has been constantly outgrowing their venue space.

"We're seeing continued growth and awesome support from the public; from Winnipeggers, as well as rural Manitobans."

This year saw roughly 800 people come through the doors to try goods from nearly 40 different Manitoban vendors.

He adds, "the buzz in the room was amazing, the vibe was great, people were having fun. We had live buskers, so we had some violin and accordion playing throughout the room . . . We do a welcome cocktail for each guest that comes and we have that featured out of an old horse trailer. So the horse trailer, that's converted into a mobile bar service."

Some of his favourite vendors include veteran market supporters like Bothwell Cheese and GORP Energy Bars, but there are some new businesses that have been stepping into the limelight. The Baltic Brothers make dried mixes they call cocktail infusions, and Granny's Poultry specializes in chicken.

"They had lineups all night long, it was crazy. They were like 20, 30 deep all night long and they're just pounding out the chicken fingers and the chicken wings all night . . . so they're definitely a good one."

He says this is just a taste of how exciting the March event can be, and notes that public support really helps to usher in the spring season.

"I'm just really grateful for hometown support because that's originally where I'm from. We definitely had guests from Winkler that did come to the event, and some managers of local retailers were there, and so that was really good. I'm definitely appreciative of that."