Made in Ontario, Made with Love: How Fruit of the Land Has Grown from a Single Pop-Up into a Gifting Destination

Stacey Kurtz’s grandmother had a theory about cooking: love is the secret ingredient in every recipe. Twenty-three years into building Fruit of the Land with her husband, Michael, Stacey has extended that theory to business. “Every business that succeeds, I really believe, is a labour of love,” she says.

Stacey and Michael met in the tasting room of an ice cream-making course at Penn State University, the same short course where the founders of Ben & Jerry’s learned the craft. Stacey, who had grown up in Manhattan, had recently finished an MBA at Wharton. She was working in new business development for a cosmetics company and ran a cookie store on the Upper East Side as a side venture. Michael had come from his family’s farm in Niagara-on-the-Lake, where they made jams and jellies and were looking at adding frozen fruit bars.

The pair married and ran an ice cream farm in Niagara before deciding to leave rural life. Their next idea brought their two worlds together: farm-fresh food, in the city.

From holiday pop-up shop to multi-channel specialty business

In 2003, Stacey and Michael opened a holiday pop-up shop at Promenade Mall in Thornhill, Ontario near where they had settled. It may have been the very first pop-up shop, and their graphic designer still tells them to put “original pop-up shop” under the logo.

Malls always have units in transition, and an empty space over the holidays earns nothing for the property owner. “We approached the malls with the idea that it’s a win-win if you have a space that’s empty,” Stacey says. They promised that the space would look permanent, and Michael, who grew up building out the produce stand at his family’s farm market, delivered units filled with organic foods, brimming baskets and beautiful displays.

It worked well enough that Cadillac Fairview, which owned Promenade Mall at the time, asked them into other malls. In the years since, they have run anywhere from two to twelve pop-ups in a season, including locations at the Eaton Centre and Yorkdale. “A lot of malls approach us and say they have this great space, and they were thinking of us,” Stacey says.

The pop-ups in the strongest locations eventually became permanent stores, as the gift basket side of the business created year-round demand. “In communities, we all have anniversaries and birthdays,” Stacey says. Today, they run three stores all year, with Promenade, their first location, as the flagship.

Their website plays a complementary role – when a pop-up closes for the season, customers in that community can still shop online. In-store and wholesale still drive the business, though online sales continue to grow year over year.

New pathways to (organic) growth

When retail stores closed during the pandemic, Fruit of the Land was heavily dependent on in-person shopping. But the Kurtzes adapted, and the pivots that followed reshaped the company in ways they hadn’t planned for.

The first was producing gift baskets for national retailers to sell in their own stores – something Stacey had never envisioned for the business. “I had always thought of our baskets as proprietary; this was never a part of our mission, but [a retailer] approached us, and during COVID, we really had to pivot,” she says. What started as roughly 1,500 baskets grew into a dynamic partnership, with the Fruit of the Land name on the product so shoppers could find them afterward. Several similar collaborations have followed.

Corporate gifting grew along its own track. Companies order baskets and engraved boards for their clients and staff, and much of the new business arrives by word of mouth from people who received one. “They say, I got a basket from Fruit of the Land, and I loved it, and we’d like to use you too,” Stacey says.

Another pathway was private label. At wholesale trade shows, specialty grocers looking to capture demand for locally sourced foods began asking whether Fruit of the Land would produce under their labels. “After COVID, there was a big emphasis on Ontario-made, so stores were looking for private label options from suppliers in Ontario,” Stacey says.

Their approach gives them an edge. “We don’t simply fill orders,” Stacey explains. “We also innovate for them. They know they can count on us to create for them.”

Recognition helped open those doors. The company has won 11 sofi Awards from the Specialty Food Association, an honour the industry calls the ‘Oscars of food,’ along with an Ontario Made retailer award and a Vaughan Business Excellence Award for retail. “The awards have created a lot of attention,” Stacey says.

What keeps people coming back after more than two decades?

When asked what drives loyalty after over 20 years in business, Stacey talks about the people, starting with staff. Fruit of the Land hires for customer service instincts: good listeners with the talent to make a gift basket that resembles a work of art. “We want there to be a wow factor when the person receives the gift,” she says.

Many staff have stayed well over a decade, and a number of retired employees come back every season.

It’s a people business on the wholesale and leasing side, too. Some of the specialty leasing managers they work with have been alongside them since the beginning, changing roles and companies along the way but keeping the connection with Fruit of the Land. “Relationships are everything,” Stacey says. “We try to be honourable, to be easy to work with, and to make it a win-win for everybody.”

When a family business becomes a legacy business

In the early years, the division of labour was clear: Stacey handled administration, and Michael was out building stores and looking after small business customers.

Now, there are more hands in the business. Their older son studied civil engineering and runs his own woodworking company, Kurtz Karpentry, making the live-edge charcuterie boards to giftwrap along with Fruit of the Land products or sells separately. He has a strong operations and logistics sense, no doubt honed from the many years spent setting up stores with his father. Their younger son, pursuing a business degree, has always been drawn to finance. He has worked the past two summers with his parents. This year, he sat in on the major client pitches and is building relationships with a new generation of buyers.

Neither was pushed. “I never even brought it up,” Stacey says, who explains they encouraged their sons to pursue their individual interests and studies. All the same, she says, “it’s like a dream come true.”

A banking relationship that has grown with the business

Stacey credits her RBC relationship managers with a role in the company’s growth, starting with the one who saw them through COVID. He arranged the seasonal financing they needed when the gift basket opportunity presented itself, and forwarded them opportunities as they crossed his desk, including a trade council seminar on expanding into other markets.

The relationship continued through a transition to their current relationship manager, Sarah Zhu, who came out to the Promenade Mall store before their annual review. “I just feel she could get a better feel for who Fruit of the Land actually is,” Stacey says. “That store captures it.” At the review, the couple laid out what the business would need to keep growing, and the team at RBC put the plan in place.

Stacey also points to her nomination for the RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Awards. “That was huge for me and for us,” she says. “That network really opens doors.”

More than two decades on, Stacey still comes back to her grandmother’s secret ingredient. It’s in the products, and it’s baked into every part of the business.