Jenna White, Jenna’s Nut-Free Dessertery Inc.
Almost five years ago Jenna lost a portion of her eyesight and then suddenly gained a nut allergy. These two life changing obstacles pushed her to become her own boss and open a nut-free bakery to help accommodate others with the same allergy. Jenna’s Nut-Free Dessertery Inc. is owned by Jenna White, a citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario.
Jenna began her journey as an entrepreneur in June 2019 in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Upon starting her business, she was a stay-at-home mom with her three children. “I think because nut-free desserts are overlooked by many companies that there is a niche market waiting to be tapped into,” said Jenna.
Jenna is passionate about everything being natural at her business, she does not believe in preservatives, chemicals, or artificial flavours. “We are a little backwards compared to most businesses, we put consumer health in front of profitability,” said Jenna. She believes this is something that is long overdue in the industry and she refuses to use artificial flavours just to cut corners and save money.
Jenna started her business at the Boyce Farmer’s Market at an outside booth with two folding tables. She eventually moved to an inside booth with a refrigerator to sell even more goodies. By saving all of her earnings from the market, Jenna was able to expand, and she continues to have a booth set up on Saturdays.
Jenna’s Nut-Free Dessertery opened their own physical location on June 1st at 170 Urquhart Crescent in Fredericton, NB and Jenna is working towards building a bigger team. Her business has a class five kitchen and it made sense to utilize the space as much as possible, so they created breakfast and lunch menus within the café in addition to the bakery. They have a wide range of bakery items: eclairs, pavlovas, mousse domes, doughnuts, muffins, coffee, lattes, etc. and they offer breakfast sandwiches on bannock, pancakes & waffles, a full breakfast on the weekends, and their lunch menu offers a variety of paninis, soup & salad, poutines, and more. “Our Wabanaki lattes were featured in Atlantic Business Magazine,” Jenna said proudly.
Recently, Jenna has begun using social media to advertise her new location and to gain a larger following. On her social media she shares her recipes so people can easily make them at home with their families. “People wanted it to be simple and easy family bonding time, so we figured why not try to get into baking mixes,” said Jenna, and that’s exactly what they did.
The baking mix they will be launching this month is bannock in a bag which includes the dry ingredients to make bannock. Cake mixes will launch later this summer. Jenna believes that introducing products like bannock in a bag is an opportunity to raise awareness of Indigenous culture, and “it is a great way to honour my roots and to share with people something they may have never tried before,” said Jenna.
Jenna’s future plans for her business include expanding their hot chocolate bombs and in early 2022, introducing their own pasta line. Five years from now, Jenna said she hopes to “have made a name for ourselves with our baking mixes as well as our flours. In addition to having multiple locations for our restaurant/bakery”.
Jenna said she has taken every course or seminar that has been available to her for the past two years. For example, she attended the agri-food & agriculture plenary hosted by JEDI last summer.
Jenna’s biggest challenge was financing her business, but she did not let it hold her back. “I built up the business by starting small and investing every penny right back into it,” said Jenna. As well, she was able to receive support from JEDI to help promote her business and she received assistance from Women in Business NB, Ulnooweg, and Planet Hatch as well. “When someone sees value in your business and invests in any way, others seem to follow suit. Financing is out there even if it is not easy,” said Jenna.
When asked what the best part about owning her own business, Jenna said “the sense of pride you get from building something from the ground up and something you can pass on. For me that is the best part, leaving my children something they can continue to grow in the future”.
Jenna’s advice to other entrepreneurs is to not give up, believe in yourself and just go for it.