“Food is a conversation starter around people’s connections to people and places,” says Trevor Jansen, who started Tawnshi Charcuterie with business partner Marina LeClair.

Their Indigenous take on the Eurocentric charcuterie board is a reminder that Indigenous peoples exist beyond land acknowledgments.

An Indigenous offering

During the pandemic, the duo took a trip to Manitoba where LeClair reconnected with her Métis heritage. The idea for Tawnshi Charcuterie arose out of this trip – allowing the business partners to address the lack of Indigenous representation in the charcuterie market.

“We did a family pilgrimage up to Manitoba to visit her father and the various gravesites of her ancestors and family out there,” Jansen recalls. “When we came back, she came out of the shower one day and says, ‘I have our business idea.’”

Bridging his marketing and branding experience with LeClair’s hospitality background, they established the business to reimagine “charcuterie through Indigenous lens.” For Jansen, who is from Gitksan Nation in northern B.C., the desire to make their family proud also drives this work.

Made from locally sourced ingredients, Tawnshi’s Indigenous charcuterie boards include such foods as bannock and pickled milkweed pods; and instead of salami and prosciutto, their boards offer smoked salmon, apple sage, butter, and bison. Pickled preserves, nuts and berries can also be found.

The team is currently collaborating with chef Sarah Meconse Mierau from the Sayisi Dene First Nation; Mierau supplies traditional plant medicine jams for their boards. Each board contains a QR code providing information on the products and how to enjoy them – a touch that Jansen sees as making the experience “palatable to modern urban audiences.”

“Some people don’t know how to enjoy dulse…they put it in their mouth and just start chewing on it and try to swallow it,” he adds. “The best way to enjoy it is to let it dissolve on your tongue and let the flavour come to you.”

Unlike salami or cheese, which can be stacked or rolled up on a board, Tawnshi’s ingredients require creative plating. Jansen notes how the team pays attention to patterns and colour contrast to design their boards as “a complete piece rather than individual presentation pieces.”

Since its inception, the business has grown from boxes for smaller gatherings to boards catering to events. They’ve recently catered for VIP guests at the Juno awards and the Museum of Vancouver’s exhibit opening.

“We were invited out to Ottawa to cater a VIP picnic at the powwow,” Jansen says of their earlier memories. “We shipped out 90 pounds of smoked salmon and a whole bunch of other stuff and worked with them to create this really bespoke experience.”

More than customers

For co-owners Elena and Konstantin Stepanov, Alenka European Foods is more than a store with products on shelves; it is also a hearty community. Specializing in eastern European products, the store has been a social hub for the local Russian-speaking community since its inception in 2009. Elena and her husband purchased the business from a Ukrainian couple in 2019 – a move that transformed them from regular customers to business owners.

“We’re just a small local store, so we pretty much know all our customers by face,” she says. “Since we speak the same language, sometimes people come here just to talk; we speak Ukrainian and Russian.”

They have recloated Alenka’s storefront from 701 Kingsway to 1236 Kingsway following a demolition notice – a move that Elena sees as beneficial for expanding their business. With newly painted walls and a bigger space, the new store will allow the business owners to better stock their clientele’s favourite products from Ukraine, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Serbia and other eastern European countries.

“Many, many people are so homesick, and they want to see the products from their childhood, the familiar tastes or brands that we never see here in Canada,” she shares.

An example is zhivchik, a carbonated juice highly sought after by their Ukrainian clientele. ROSHEN candy is another popular Ukrainian item. Alenka’s bestsellers are cheesecake bars from Ukraine and Lithuania. With chocolate covering and cottage cheese stuffing, these bars come in different flavours, including strawberry, raspberry, poppy seed, vanilla and black currant.

Elena adds that their products also appeal to the wider Canadian public, particularly their pierogies. Handmade locally in an “old-fashioned style,” these pierogies evoke warm memories.

“People from an European background, they often come here and say, ‘This is the kind of pierogies my grandma made for dinner,’” she shares.

The co-owner adds that each country has notable products: Georgia and Armenia are known for their jam; Georgia is also noted for its canned vegetable sauces; the Baltic countries – Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – are recognized for their milk products.

The business also operates a second store at 1233 Burrard Street, which has a commercial kitchen. Elena plans to upgrade their business licence for the Kingsway branch so they can also sell freshly cooked products. She sees her clients as friends – a warm spirit that is also reflected in her staff.

“One of my sales associates wasn’t sure if the phone number will be transferred from the old location to the new location, so she started to give her personal phone number to the customers,” Elena shares. “They wanted to know where we’re moving and when we will be open.”

Feeling like home

El Paisano is more than its products; the store brings people back home, says director Cindy Cueva. Along with her fraternal twin sister, Sofia Cueva, Cindy started the Latin American grocery store in 2024. Their goal was to bring Latin American flavours to Vancouver, particularly as the city’s Latin community continues to grow.

“It’s the feeling you get when you see something, and it brings you back to your memories, to your childhood,” she shares. “Sometimes we have clients who get really excited and happy, and they tell us, ‘I used to have these when I was a kid,’ ‘My mama cooked this for me.’”

The store currently has two locations, both in the heart of downtown: 921 Davie Street and 678 Dunsmuir Street. With a name that translate to “someone from your own country,” El Paisano is rooted in Cindy’s desire to build community. She notes how the term “paisano” is used in Mexico to refer to other Mexicans, recognizing how they are “from the same place.”

“We want our clients to feel like they are home; we always have loud Latin music,” Cindy adds. “Some clients say, ‘This feels like a party,’ and that’s what we want.”

The sisters’ attention to client desires is also reflected in their careful selection of products. El Paisano’s shelves are primarily stocked with products from Mexico, Colombia and Brazil; they also include Peruvian products from time to time. Mexican spicy chips known as Fuego are bestsellers at both locations.

The store also stocks lesser-known Mexican products, such as the vanilla soda ToniCol. According to Cindy, the drink is so rare only people from certain regions in Mexico would know it.

“[A customer] started telling me that the beverage is from his town, that his grandma used to give it to him, and I got to hear so many stories,” she shares.

Colombian arepas, a type of flatbread, with cheese is another bestseller at El Paisano. Another Colombian favourite is the dulce de leche known as arequipe – a sweet sauce combining sugar and milk. Cindy notes how the treat is often consumed with cheese in Colombia.

“My bestselling Brazilian product has to be their drink, called guarana,” the director says of the beverage that tastes like passion fruit and mango mixed together.

For Cindy, the three cultures – Brazilian, Colombian and Mexican – have certain similarities. For example, the Mexican gansito, a strawberry jam-filled cake covered with chocolate, is similar to the Colombian chocoramo, a chocolate covered cake. Next on the menu for Cindy is learning Portuguese to better communicate with her Brazilian clients.

“I have people that cried [in the store] because of a memory related to a product,” she shares. “I got my music, and people are happy; we laugh, we joke.”

For more information on Tawnshi Charcuterie, see www.tawnshi.com

For more information on Alenka European Foods, see www.alenkaeurofoods.ca. Their new location—1236 Kingsway—is now open.

For more information on El Paisano, see www.elpaisano.ca