About Us

meet the founders

Originally from Kent in the UK, Ed has always worked in fine dining kitchens around the world and has been
making sourdough since 2008. Ed and Natasha moved to Canada in 2013 to snowboard for a season. They both worked
in hospitality and Ed worked in farm-to-table restaurant Alta Bistro in Whistler, BC.

While taking some shoulder-season leave and working on Vancouver Island farms in the summer of 2014, Ed started
a sourdough culture that he took with him back to Alta Bistro and implemented a bread programme for the
restaurant.

Back in 2016, Ed rented the bistro’s kitchen once a week to make bread for his friends, who subsequently
told their friends, and before long demand had increased to a point where Ed had outgrown the equipment.
That’s when Ed and his wife, Natasha, decided to team up and start planning to open an 100% plant-based
organic sourdough bread shop in Creekside, Whistler. Natasha admired Ed’s dedication to making tasty
artisan loaves and Ed knew that Natasha’s background as an English teacher and examiner, as well as a
string of hospitality jobs over the years would come in useful for starting a food and beverage business.

a plant-based bakery was born

Being vegan for the past five years, it was important for Ed and Natasha to bring that into their business.
They both believe that you shouldn’t make food for other people that you wouldn’t eat yourself.

The bread shop and plant-based bakery sells loaves for pick-up in-store and a selection of small baked items
and espresso based coffees are available in the bread shop. Direct-trade, Australian-inspired Vancouver roasted
smooth, rich and balanced deep chocolate syrupy sweetness and cherry-like fruitiness espresso coffees matched
with oat, almond, soy or coconut alternatives to cow’s milk.

Keeping it Local

At BReD, we have a commitment to sourcing as locally as we can. This means that more than 50% of our non-labour expenses from our local independent suppliers are no further than Vancouver, which is the closest city to Whistler village. And our customers are locals too, at least 75% of our clientele live in the Sea to Sky Corridor or Vancouver.

Our menu changes with the seasons to reflect this, so you won’t find carrot cake on our menu all year round because we cannot always access locally grown carrots and we prefer not to source them from overseas.

Our seasonal menu uses ingredients from the following suppliers:

Fresh produce from Helmers farm in Pemberton

Fresh blueberries from Hares farm in Pemberton

Fresh produce from Seed to Culture in Lillooet

Fresh produce from Edible Eden Farm in Pemberton

Fresh produce from Laughing Crow farm in Pemberton

Fresh produce from North Arm Farm in Pemberton

Olives from Astrid’s Fine Foods in Whistler (distributor for Lekker’s in Richmond)

Loose leaf tea from Ranger Tea (formerly Namasthe) in Whistler

Tea blends from Blume in Vancouver

Coffee beans from Elysian coffee in Vancouver

Dry foods from Jiva Organics in Vancouver

Dry foods from LCG Foods in Vancouver

Maple syrup from Simply Canadian in Vancouver

Butter and cream cheese from Vegan Supply in Vancouver

Salt from Vancouver Island Sea Salt in Oyster Bay

Flour from Anita’s Organic Mill in Chilliwack

Environmental policy

Introduction and aim

We recognize that environmental degradation and climate change is a serious global problem, and our operations result in emissions to air and water, and the generation of waste. It is our aim to comply with legislation and other requirements, continue to reduce the environmental impacts of our business and operate in an environmentally responsible manner. As a business we are committed to minimizing our impact on the environment and climate. This policy describes how we will achieve our aim.

Responsibility

This environmental policy applies to all our operations including management, cafe service, baking, delivery and procurement. Natasha Tatton is responsible for ensuring that the policy is implemented. However, all employees have a responsibility in their area to ensure that the aims and objectives of the policy are met.

Resources

We will ensure that resources are available to enable us to achieve our objectives and targets.

Objectives

During 2023 we aim to:

• Be zero-food waste, in that no unsold items will go into the garbage but will be donated to locals in need, and any unsellable food items will be composted.
• Reduce the generation of general and hazardous (special) wastes.
• Inform all customers, staff and suppliers of our commitment to reducing our environmental impact.
• Source more of our produce and ingredients as organically as possible, looking for certifications from producers.
• Keep our packaging plastic-free, sourcing the best compostable packaging available. This means not slicing bread for customers as we would then have to package it in plastic bags.
• Continue to source all ingredients as locally as possible, ordering as infrequently as we can to minimize transportation emissions.
• Only hire staff who live within the Whistler area, and encourage them not to use gas vehicles to get to work.
• Use only plant-derived ingredients in our recipes as animal agriculture has been shown to emit excessive GHGs.
• Use seasonal ingredients and minimize our inclusion of exotic ingredients in our recipes.

Targets

To achieve our aims, we have set ourselves the following targets:

• inform all customers and suppliers about our environmental policy, creating blog and social media posts to help educate the public about our initiatives.
• ensure all employees receive training in recycling sorting and incorporate this training into the induction programme for new starters.

things you may not know about ed

1. He has been a footman for state visits at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.
2. He once put a fire out on a London Underground tube train (subway) with his feet and saved many people’s
   lives.
3. He has cooked for DJ Jazzy Jeff from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

things you may not know about natasha

1. She grew up in foster care in south-east London, and went vegetarian at age 7.
2. She has surfed around the world in places like Bali, Australia, Portugal and Mexico, but can’t swim!
3. Her first job was working as a clown at children’s parties where the kids either chased her for hours to
   fight her, or ran away screaming! It was exhausting and only paid £5/hour.

Have you visited Ed + Natasha’s plant-based bakery yet?

store locator