She’s a wife, a mom, a boss, and most recently a Mompreneur finalist. Only a few years after launching Rawnata, her gluten-free snacking company, Natalie Dueck is doing it all.
The New Bothwell entrepreneur started her journey into the health food market in 2003 when she and her family operated as The Bread Lady at the St. Norbert Farmers Market, offering a variety of whole grain breads and baking. Since then, she has grown her business to offer raw, gluten-free snacks, introducing Rawnata’s first cracker nine years ago.
Rawnata is committed to creating quality products that offer a wide-range of health benefits while catering to the growing gluten-free market.
“Rawnata products focus on hemp and flax, which are both superfoods containing high amounts of Omega 3s,” Dueck says of her snacking line. “We feel that our products are unique in that everything is processed at low temperatures, which aids in digestion. As well, we begin the sprouting process with the flax that we use for our crackers, which increases the availability of the nutrients and makes the crackers really easy to chew.”
The company, which is entirely family-owned and operated, also sources its ingredients from local and Canadian farmers and businesses.
Dueck was recently a finalist in the 2018 Mompreneur awards, which supports, educates, and empowers mothers in business. The national award saw over 1,200 nominations, with Dueck ending as one of 23 top finalists.
“It was a pleasant surprise to [be nominated] and to make it to the finals. It was nice to be recognized and served as encouragement to keep pressing on!” she says. “The Mompreneurs is a great support network for women in business, whether they’re an entrepreneur like myself or Colleen [Dyck] from GORP, or someone working as a product ambassador for another company.”
Colleen Dyck, another local woman, won the Mompreneur of the Year award in 2016.
Dueck, however, is no stranger to having her products recognized. Rawnata’s Chocolate Hemp Snackers won the Great Manitoba Food Fight in 2011, made the Foodie Pages Top 20 Picks in 2015, and won the Emerging Innovator Award in 2016.
“I had definitely hoped to have it in stores and believed it could happen, but back then I thought it would be an item sold in health food stores, and I thought I could make it happen in a matter of months,” she says, reflecting on her journey so far. “However, that’s not the way it goes in the food world, especially for a stay-at-home mom with a lot of kids… It’s been quite wonderful to see organic, raw, and vegan products such as ours go mainstream over the last five years or so. Never once in my wildest dreams had I imagined seeing Rawnata in a Safeway store! Maybe my dream of having Rawnata in Starbucks isn’t so far-fetched after all.”
Hoping to expand outside the Canadian market in the next few years, Dueck credits her support network of family and friends in the Manitoba business community, as well as her faith as key contributors to her success.
“Our main goal is to create products which can make a positive difference in people’s health,” she says. “And while working toward this goal we want to support local suppliers whenever possible, because that creates a healthy business community.”
