Pie, cake, honey bread, cupcakes – imagine being a kid who couldn't have any. That's what happened when Joanna Schultz’s three-year-old daughter was diagnosed with gluten and dairy allergies. That can take a lot of fun out of a kid’s life. Joanna shopped for suitable staples, but found the quality tragic. There were a few gluten-free bakeries, but they all used dairy.
The former baker realized there must be other families facing this dilemma. She began to research and tried and tweaked recipes. It didn’t take her long to see that there was a rapidly growing market for allergen-free baked goods. By 2012, she left a great job and rolled the dice. With her recipes perfected, she opened Pikanik Bakery in South Surrey.
Pikanik started as a small storefront with fresh daily baking. Their first offerings were free of peanuts, tree nuts, gluten and dairy. Then people started asking for soy-free, then egg-free. But Pikanik goes beyond these allergens. “We address so many allergies,” Joanna notes. This includes dairy, soy, gluten, nuts, preservatives and synthetic dyes. The facility itself is free of all these contaminants and the staff can’t bring any of them onto the premises. To keep things really safe they stopped serving coffee. “People wanted milk for their coffee. There can be anaphylactic allergies to dairy, and steaming milk releases dairy particles into the air. We knew we couldn’t go part way.”
