Hello! I am Priya.

Six years ago, I came to Lindsay, Ontario, for higher studies. I enrolled in Fleming College’s Advanced Water System Operations and Management program. During my studies, to cover personal expenses, I found a part-time job at Mickael’s Café Libraire, run by a baker from France.

Mickael sold croissants, sourdough bread, bagels, pretzels, and more. All of these items were new to me because I am from Punjab, the land of chapati and curries. I was first hired to clean, but soon Mickael introduced me to baking. He started me with simple items like bagels, pretzels, and cookies. After a few months, his main baker left, so Mickael began teaching me more complicated items like sourdough bread.

In October 2018, my husband, Amrish Kumar Goyal, came to Lindsay on a spousal visa. For the first two months he worked in a factory, but near Christmas he was laid off. He moved to Brampton for work and to enroll in a truck driving school—classes in the morning, work in the afternoons. After passing the truck driving test, he returned to Lindsay but couldn’t find a truck-driving job due to lack of experience.

One day, he asked Mickael for work. Luckily, Mickael was looking for someone for night shifts and asked Amrish to try baking. Mickael’s first language is French, and Amrish’s is Punjabi, so they used Google Translate sometimes. Mostly, though, Amrish learned by watching. “Mickael was very patient. If we made a mistake, he dealt with everything calmly,” says Amrish.

Amrish, working alone in the bakery through the night, focused on optimizing oven use. On Fridays he had to turn out roughly 300 loaves. I worked during the day, preparing doughs, pretzels, bagels, cookies, tarts, and more.

At Mickael’s, we discovered we both loved baking and soon dreamed of having our own bakery. We worked hard and started saving money to make that dream come true.

After gaining experience, we moved to Sudbury to open a bakery. At that time, I was six months pregnant. Before moving, Mickael and his staff arranged a farewell party and baby shower for us. Being far from family and receiving so much love in another country meant a lot.

In Sudbury, I gave birth to our happy, healthy, and beautiful daughter, whom we named Kriti. She brought happiness to our lives and gave us one more reason to succeed in our career. My parents came from India to help us take care of Kriti.

We had chosen Sudbury thinking houses would be affordable and the French community would support French baked goods. But we couldn’t secure a commercial space, and there weren’t enough farmers’ markets in the area. One day, Amrish’s cousin Honey told him about Brantford, which is surrounded by many cities. Our plan was simple: if the retail store didn’t go well, we could still survive through farmers’ markets.

When we moved to Brantford, we saw many commercial places but none fit our budget. We had already ordered an oven that required a three-phase electrical connection. Affordable old buildings didn’t have it, and the new plazas where it was available were too expensive. The oven company was calling us to pick it up. We were very stressed and losing hope.

Then Amrish’s friend Rajdeep told him about OKB, a shared commercial kitchen where different businesses cook or bake and sell at their food shop, farmers’ markets, or as wholesalers. The owner of OKB, a very kind lady, allowed us to install our big oven in her kitchen.

We started baking in November 2022. We baked for their food shop and distributed samples at different stores for wholesale supply. We also joined the Niagara Falls Christmas Market. These things covered our bakery expenses, but for home expenses Amrish worked for Uber and DoorDash.

We successfully applied to sell our products at farmers’ markets in Burlington, Cambridge, Kitchener, Toronto, Smithville, and Welland—six locations in total. Amrish’s sister-in-law, Nikita, was also living with us, and with her help we managed six markets. Sometimes we even took Kriti along.

In July, his brother Harish came from India. He needed work too, so we increased our market days. We began going to Burlington and Welland twice a week, making it eight markets per week.

People appreciated our products, and we began to make good revenue. That gave us encouragement, and satisfaction, and the confidence that we had made the right decision for our future.